“Fear will change sides” says French President Macron

Protests and calls for boycotts of French goods have spread and intensified across several Muslim majority nations in response to French President Emmanuel Macron defending the free speech rights of those who create and or display cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

Macron has ignored the outcry and has taken aim at both radical Islamic terrorism as well as political Islam in France after the beheading of a French school teacher who displayed a cartoon of Mohammad to his class, after allowing Muslim students to leave the room before displaying it.

Macron said, regarding the current state in France, that “Fear will change sides,” referencing Macron’s crackdown on both terrorist activities as well as the social networks in France that have aided in terroristic acts or tolerated them.

Macron said:

The government believes the response cannot only be about law enforcement. They also need to manage social networks and associations, because this tragic case shed light on a whole network which spreads hate speeches within the population. The system needs changing.

Before Macron started this massive pushback on both radical Islam and political Islam (those wanting to implement Sharia Law) the biggest weak spot in Macron’s presidency was security. Now it seems as if this recent brutal terror attack has spurred Macron to not just attempting to mitigate the problem of radical Islamist attacks but to end it entirely.

Although there have been protests everywhere from Libya to Bangladesh, who’s capital Dhaka recently had a protest of over 40,000 people, the main tensions in this free speech diplomatic battle has been between Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Macron.

Erdogan, like many Muslim world leaders, has been condemning Macron and threatening boycotts and cutting diplomatic ties with France for Macron’s tolerance of the French people’s free speech right to draw Mohammad if they so choose. Macron so far has not budged on his new commitment to stand up to the pressures of political Islam domestically and internationally.

Erdogan said in one speech that, “Macron needs mental health treatment,” and accused him of being against Muslim people and Islam generally, by not condemning and curbing free expression when it comes to cartoons of Mohammad.