President Arif Alvi’s recent speech criticising the French government for passing a law widely considered to be anti-Muslim has not gone down well in Paris. The French Foreign Ministry summoned Pakistan’s envoy this week to protest Alvi’s remarks. But what was so offensive about his remarks? Alvi had said that the law effectively codified discriminatory attitudes towards Islam and warned that this would have serious repercussions for French Muslims. He said France “needs to bring people together and not to stamp a religion in a certain manner to create disharmony and bias.” Alvi also said that the new law was not in line with the United Nations charter and went against European ideals of social harmony.
French officials told the Pakistani Charge d’Affaires “that the bill contains no discriminatory element”. They also said the law makes no distinction between different religions and applies therefore equally to all faiths. On paper, this is true. The law doesn’t explicitly mention Muslims, but that is only because it would be unconstitutional if it did. What the law actually does, among other things, is to expand the state’s oversight powers with regard to religious organisations and places of worship, restrict homeschooling, and force secularism in various areas. The government does not admit that these actually refer to mosques, Islamic education, and Muslim women’s dressing and modesty practices.
The problem is that French President Emmanuel Macron let the cat out of the bag quite early when he did mention Muslims in the context of the law. It is also notable that Macron, who faces re-election in 2022 amid declining popularity, has reportedly been wooing far-right voters. His hope is to split the base of the rising far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen. Proof of this is in the fact that Le Pen, who has made vile comments about Muslims, immigrants and other minorities, was recently ‘called out’ by Macron’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin for not taking enough of a hard-line stance against Islamist extremism. If Macron is trying to run from the right of Le Pen on this issue, we can be certain that his policies will be anything but kind to Muslims.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2021.
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