French products have been removed from some shops in Kuwait, Jordan, and Qatar. Meanwhile, protests have been seen in Libya, Syria, and the Gaza Strip.
Paris: France has requested Middle Eastern and Arab countries to end calls for a boycott of its French goods in protest at President Macron’s defense of the right to show cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
OIC, GCC, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, and more Islamic leaders have rounded on Mr. Macron, accusing him of not respecting “freedom of belief” and marginalizing the of Muslims in France and across the World.
French products have been removed from some shops in Kuwait, Jordan, and Qatar. Meanwhile, protests have been seen in Libya, Syria, and the Gaza Strip.
Supermarket shelves had been stripped of French products in Jordan, Qatar, and Kuwait by Sunday. French-made hair and beauty items, for example, were not on display.
In Kuwait, a major retail union has ordered a boycott of French goods.
The non-governmental Union of Consumer Co-operative Societies said it had issued the directive in response to “repeated insults” against the Prophet Muhammad.
Kuwait’s retail co-ops have pulled French products in boycott over the use of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in a French school class on freedom of expression whose teacher was then beheaded by a Chechen teenager.
In Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, a hashtag calling for the boycott of French supermarket retailer Carrefour was the second most trending on Sunday.
In Kuwait, the non-governmental Union of Consumer Co-operative Societies, which groups more than 70 establishments, issued the boycott directive in an Oct. 23 circular. Several co-ops visited by Reuters on Sunday had cleared the shelves of items such as hair and beauty products made by French companies.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan also said on Sunday President Emmanuel Macron had “attacked Islam” by encouraging the display of the cartoons.
Depictions of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) can cause serious offence to Muslims because Islamic tradition explicitly forbids images of Muhammad and Allah (God).
the French foreign ministry in a statement acknowledged the moves, writing: “These calls for boycott are baseless and should stop immediately, as well as all attacks against our country, which are being pushed by a radical minority.”
On Sunday, Mr. Macron doubled down on his defense of French values in a tweet that read: ” We will not give in, ever. We respect all differences in a spirit of peace. We do not accept hate speech and defend reasonable debate. We will always be on the side of human dignity and universal values.”