CAIRO – French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is in Egypt today hoping to ease tensions following the publishing of controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that sparked ire in the Arab world.
A diplomatic source said Le Drian will meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Egypt’s highest Muslim authority.
Le Drian “will pursue the appeasement process” started by President Emmanuel Macron, said the French Foreign Ministry in a statement.
The Cairo-based Al-Azhar, considered the foremost religious institution for Sunni Muslims, condemned French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s decision in September to reprint the cartoons.
Last month, Tayeb denounced remarks by Macron in “Islamist separatism” as “racist” and spreading “hate speech”.
Demonstrations have erupted in several Muslim-majority countries after Macron defended the right to publish cartoons of the Prophet, which many saw as insulting and an attack on Islam.
Macron’s remarks came after a suspected Islamist decapitated a teacher in a Paris suburb on October 16, after he showed the cartoons during a lesson on freedom of expression.
Sisi himself has weighed in, saying last month that “to insult the prophets amounts to underestimating the religious beliefs of many people”. – AFP, November 8, 2020
