PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged France’s Muslim community to step up the fight against “separatism” as he toughened his rhetoric against Islamic radicalism in the wake of a deadly attack.
The centrist Macron, whose main political rival at home is far-right leader Marine Le Pen, has sought to show he is serious in cracking down on Islamic radicalism in France following the October 3 attack by a Muslim convert at Paris police headquarters that left four staff dead.
In a pre-recorded interview with RTL radio broadcast on Monday, Macron said he planned to fight, alongside Muslim leaders, against what he termed “communitarianism” and resistance among some French Muslims to integrate.
“It is a fact that a form of separatism has taken root in some places in our Republic, in other words a desire to not live together and to not be in the Republic,” he said.
“It is in the name of a religion, namely Islam,” he said.
Macron’s comments were broadcast hours before he hosted representatives of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) to press for joint efforts between the government and the Muslim community to crack down on radicalism.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who attended the meeting, told AFP Macron had urged the CFCM leaders to “fight alongside the state against communitarianism and Islamism.”
The president told them he wanted to see a “change in rhythm” from the council to wage a genuine fight against radicalism.
CFCM Vice President Anouar Kbibech, who was present at the Elysee talks, said the council would now make “very strong announcements” on the fight against radicalism at an extraordinary meeting called for Tuesday.
There has been an ongoing debate in France in recent years about the role of Islam in a republic built on staunchly secular values where Muslims now make up some 10 percent of the population.
The controversy intensified following a string of deadly attacks carried out by Islamist militants in 2015, including the massacres at the Charlie Hebo satirical magazine and Bataclan music venue.
The October 3 killings by Mickael Harpon, a 45-year-old computer expert who converted to Islam a decade ago and adopted increasingly radical beliefs, has again laid bare the tensions.
Eager not to be outflanked by the National Rally (RN) of Le Pen, Macron after the killings gave a tough speech where he vowed “an unrelenting fight in the face of Islamist terrorism.”
He called on all of France to build “a society in a state of vigilance” in order to overcome what he termed the “Islamist hydra.”
Macron takes aim at Islamic ‘separatism’ in France
Macron takes aim at Islamic ‘separatism’ in France
UK’s Starmer calls Trump’s remarks on allies in Afghanistan ‘frankly appalling’
- Britain lost 457 service personnel killed in Afghanistan, its deadliest overseas war since the 1950s
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called US President Donald Trump’s comments about European troops staying off the front lines in Afghanistan insulting and appalling, joining a chorus of criticism from other European officials and veterans.
“I consider President Trump’s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling, and I’m not surprised they’ve caused such hurt for the loved ones of those who were killed or injured,” Starmer told reporters.
When asked whether he would demand an apology from the US leader, Starmer said: “If I had misspoken in that way or said those words, I would certainly apologize.”
Britain lost 457 service personnel killed in Afghanistan, its deadliest overseas war since the 1950s. For several of the war’s most intense years it led the allied campaign in Helmand, Afghanistan’s biggest and most violent province, while also fighting as the main US battlefield ally in Iraq.
Starmer’s remarks were notably strong coming from a leader who has tended to avoid direct criticism of Trump in public.
Trump told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” on Thursday the United States had “never needed” the transatlantic alliance and accused allies of staying “a little off the front lines” in Afghanistan.
His remarks added to already strained relations with European allies after he used the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos to again signal his interest in acquiring Greenland.
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel condemned Trump’s remarks on Afghanistan, calling them untrue and disrespectful.
Britain’s Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan, also weighed in. “Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect,” he said in a statement.
’WE PAID IN BLOOD FOR THIS ALLIANCE’
“We expect an apology for this statement,” Roman Polko, a retired Polish general and former special forces commander who also served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told Reuters in an interview.
Trump has “crossed a red line,” he added. “We paid with blood for this alliance. We truly sacrificed our own lives.”
Britain’s veterans minister, Alistair Carns, whose own military service included five tours including alongside American troops in Afghanistan, called Trump’s claims “utterly ridiculous.”
“We shed blood, sweat and tears together. Not everybody came home,” he said in a video posted on X.
Richard Moore, the former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence service, said he, like many MI6 officers, had operated in dangerous environments with “brave and highly esteemed” CIA counterparts and had been proud to do so with Britain’s closest ally.
Under NATO’s founding treaty, members are bound by a collective-defense clause, Article 5, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.
It has been invoked only once — after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, when allies pledged to support the United States. For most of the war in Afghanistan, the US-led force there was under NATO command.
POLISH SACRIFICE ‘MUST NOT BE DIMINISHED’
Some politicians noted that Trump had avoided the draft for the Vietnam War, citing bone spurs in his feet.
“Trump avoided military service 5 times,” Ed Davey, leader of Britain’s centrist Liberal Democrats, wrote on X. “How dare he question their sacrifice.”
Poland’s sacrifice “will never be forgotten and must not be diminished,” Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
Trump’s comments were “ignorant,” said Rasmus Jarlov, an opposition Conservative Party member of Denmark’s parliament. In addition to the British deaths, more than 150 Canadians were killed in Afghanistan, along with 90 French service personnel and scores from Germany, Italy and other countries. Denmark — now under heavy pressure from Trump to transfer its semi-autonomous region of Greenland to the US — lost 44 troops, one of NATO’s highest per-capita death rates.
The United States lost about 2,460 troops in Afghanistan, according to the US Department of Defense, a figure on par per capita with those of Britain and Denmark. (Reporting by Sam Tabahriti and Elizabeth Evans in London, Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen and Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Malgorzata Wojtunik in Gdansk, additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Muvija M and James Davey in London and Bart Meijer in Amsterdam; Writing by Sam Tabahriti; editing by Gareth Jones, Andrew Heavens, Ros Russell and Diane Craft)
