(AFP) Muslims are “not persecuted” in France, the French Council of the Muslim Faith said Monday, as a row over radical Islam and freedom of speech pits Muslim nations against Paris.
“France is a big country, Muslim citizens are not persecuted, they freely construct their mosques and [they] freely practise their religion,” said the council, which acts as an official go-between for the state and observant Muslims.
French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to take the fight to Islamist radicals after the October 16 beheading of a history teacher who had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed to pupils in a class discussion on free speech.
But a backlash against his comments saw protests in Muslim-majority countries over the weekend, with people burning pictures of Macron in Syria and setting fire to French flags in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
