Macron hits out at media coverage of terror attacks

EMMANUEL MACRON has accused The New York Times and other Englishlanguage media outlets of “legitimisi ng” violence against France by branding t he country “racist and Islamophobic”.

In the latest round of a war of words with t he “Anglo-saxon” press, t he French president said that it had “failed to understand laïcité”, a Gallic term for secularism in which all religions are protected along with the freedom to blaspheme.

He was speaking in the wake of last month’s beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, who was killed after showing his pupils cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in a lesson on free speech.

“When France was attacked f ive years ago, every nation in the world supported us,” Mr Macron said, referring to the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo shootings and the series of Islamist terror attacks which killed 130 people in Paris ten months later. “So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values … when I see them legitimising this violence, and saying that the heart of the problem is that

France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost,” he told Ben Smith, media columnist with The New York Times.

Mr Macron responded to Mr Paty’s murder with a crackdown on Muslims accused of extremism, conducting dozens of raids and vowing to shut down aid groups. While paying tribute to the teacher, he also defended French laïcité, which is enshrined in a 1905 law separating church and state.

Mr Macron said American criticism sprung f rom a “misunderstanding about what the European model is, and the French model in particular”.

“Our model is universalist, not multiculturalist,” he said. “In our society, I don’t care whether someone is black, yellow or white, whether they are Catholic or Muslim, a person is first and foremost a citizen.”

The president also criticised t he Financial Times for publishing a piece titled “Macron’s war on ‘Islamic separatism’ only divides France further”. The paper later retracted the article, citing factual errors.

His defence of secularism and the right to blaspheme has won him plaudits back home but has triggered protests across Islamic countries.