(France 24) French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday secured his cabinet’s blessing for a draft law targeting “radical Islamism” following a spate of terror attacks, a move some critics fear will stigmatise the French Muslim community, Europe’s largest.
The text was originally titled the “anti-separatism” bill, a term Macron has used to refer to radical Islamists withdrawing from mainstream society. Following criticism of that term, it is now called a “draft law to strengthen republican values,” mostly secularism and freedom of expression.
Defending the bill at a press conference on Wednesday, Prime Minister Jean Castex said the text does not target religious freedom but is aimed at “the nefarious ideology of radical Islamism.”
Castex described the proposed bill as “a law of freedom, of protection and emancipation in the face of religious fundamentalism.”
