France was stung into launching a charm offensive to quell anti-French sentiment in some Muslim countries after receiving tens of thousands of messages of indignation from moderate believers on a government website, say reports. The French foreign ministry was said to be taken aback by the scale of accusations of “colonial arrogance” on its Arabic
Facebook page from around 50,000 people from various countries. Usually, the site receives a few dozen likes or comments. According to Le Monde, the Quai d’Orsay, as the ministry is is known, was struck by the fact that many of the messages were not from “Islamist circles or the ‘radical minority’ mentioned in the statement”. French president
Emmanuel Macron, who had already angered Muslims earlier in October by saying “Islam is in crisis worldwide,” stirred further backlash after the murder of a teacher outside
Paris last month who had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during class by saying
France “will not give up our cartoons”. The remarks led to calls for a boycott of French goods notably by
Turkey and mass
protests in various countries, including Bangladesh. In response, the French foreign ministry said that such “attacks on our country pushed by a radical minority are baseless and must be stopped immediately”. “I’m against a boycott of French goods but after such a declaration, everyone will boycott you,” wrote Abdelhadi Alijla, a Palestinian-Swedish political scientist. “This rhetoric full or superiority has only made things worse,” said Ibrahim Fraihat, professor of international relations at the Doha Institute. “Macron had the vast majority of the Arab world behind him after the murder of Samuel Paty (the slain teacher). And in a few disastrous declarations, he managed to lose it.” Since then, the foreign minister issued a placatory message saying France had only "a message of peace for the Muslim world”. This week Mr Macron spoke with the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders and in a long interview on Saturday with Al Jazeera, he said: "I can understand that people could be shocked by the caricatures but I will never accept that violence can be justified.”, Mr Macron said: "I can understand that people could be shocked by the caricatures but I will never accept that violence can be justified.”