The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has said that Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world.
Macron stated this in a long-awaited address on Friday. He unveiled a plan to defend the country’s secular values against what he termed as “Islamist radicalism”, insisting that “no concessions” would be made in a new drive to push religion out of education and the public sector in France.
“Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country,” he said.
He announced that the government would present a bill in December to strengthen a 1905 law that officially separated church and state in France.
The measures, Macron said, were aimed at addressing a problem of growing “radicalisation” in France and improving “our ability to live together”.
“Secularism is the cement of a united France,” he insisted, but added that there was no sense in stigmatising all Muslim believers.
The law permits people to belong to any faith of their choosing, Macron said, but outward displays of religious affiliation would be banned in schools and the public service.
Wearing the hijab is already banned in French schools and for public servants at their workplace.
Macron on Friday was speaking one week after a man attacked two people with a meat cleaver outside the former Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly, an assault condemned by the government as an act of “Islamist terrorism”.
Staff at Charlie Hebdo were killed in January 2015 by armed gunmen seeking to avenge its publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Members of the Muslim community in France have consistently denounced the acts, describing them as going against the precepts of their religion.
AL Jazeera reports