Did you know that here in France insulting the Prophet Muhammad upon whom be peace is freedom of
speech but making fun of the french President Emmanuel Macron, the head of the Republic, is wrong?
Well that's what newspaper reports are saying recently uh looking here one by the news agency
Reuters headlined 'French President Emmanuel Macron sue's billboard owner for depicting
him as Hitler' Well well! The article says in part that the president is suing a billboard owner
who depicts him as Adolf Hitler to protest Covid 19 restrictions. the chap who
owns 400 billboards in southern france wrote on Twitter two days ago 'I have just
learned that i will be heard at the Toulon police station - that's on the south coast -
tomorrow that'll be yesterday following a complaint by the president of the republic'
the offending poster portrays Macron in the uniform of the Nazi leader Hitler with a small moustache
a lock on his forehead, and the acronym of the presidential movement lrem turned into a swastika.
The message reads 'Obey, get vaccinated!' There's clearly an anti-vaccination a bit, bit of a jibe
there at him. Interestingly according to the same article the offense of insulting the president
of the republic was repealed in 2013 after a European Court of Human Rights ruling condemned
France. So there you go it's still not, it's still permissible apparently legally to do so
but anyway the president has complained now what i find very interesting about this is several things
now i like france there's so much about this country i like it has exquisite food it has
beautiful countryside the climate is amazing and not not to speak of the cheeses ah the cheeses
are amazing uh the part of france i live in has beautiful architecture the people are very nice
so you know and the history is quite extraordinary good and bad but there is an exquisite exquisite
hypocrisy here i refer here for example a news article also by the same news agency
headlined france's macron the same guy refuses to condemn Charlie Hebdo
cartoons of the prophet muhammad the president defended citizens right to freedom of speech
his remarks came as the satirical weekly charlie hebdo the target of a massacre of gunmen in 2015
said it was republishing the cartoons of the prophet muhammad believe it or not and he said
the president said it was not his place to pass judgment on the decision of uh charlie hebdo to
publish these cartoons again unbelievable and he and he said apparently there is in france
a freedom to blaspheme which is attached to the freedom of conscience i am here to protect
all these freedoms an actual quote from the french president in france one can criticize a president
governors and blaspheme he said so what's going on here then why is the french president
suddenly getting very sensitive about a satirical cult cartoon of himself the little moustache uh
protesting against uh his very kind of hard words about insisting french citizens get vaccinated but
defending everyone's right to speak to free speech to blaspheme even when it comes to muhammad um
that seems like selective freedom of speech to me double standards hypocrisy maybe the
uh the additional uh constitutional slogan to liberty a guarantee of fraternity should be to say
you are free to say whatever we agree with that should be the new slogan of the french
republic is actually worse than this really because there had been a spate of incidents
even in the last weeks there has been two imams uh in a mosque in paris who during a sermon
have now been stopped and sacked by the the government uh the interior minister here the
home secretary insisted on their removal what was their crime were they calling for terrorism
were they calling for the overthrow of the french state were they calling for what were they doing
that was so bad no they were merely preaching directly from the quran and it was about the
traditional gender roles that many muslims believe are relevant to muslims lives these days and for
that offense against this kind of secular militant wokism they were actually removed permanently from
their posts no freedom of speech there and worse than that they're leave to remain once it expires
comes to its natural end will not be renewed and they'll be forced to leave the country
where is the outcry about that i ask you where are the uh the outpourings of anger about uh freedom
to uh express views in the name of liberty of the constitution the french republic that we heard
over the charlie hebdo cartoons now i just want to say something a little bit about these cartoons
i've had the uh the misfortune to have seen a number of them some of them are pretty silly
i mean i go to speaker's corner you know this is pretty you know but some of them are really
offensive and i'm not even going to describe what they portray but they are thoroughly nasty by any
standards and to use such depictions of the holy prophet of god whether it be jesus or muhammad or
moses peace be upon them all is unacceptable in a civilized society and france of all countries
considers itself civilized he thinks he gave birth to civilization um so you know uh there are many
things in this country one cannot say publicly uh to do with certain historical events in the 1930s
and 40s which i won't repeat um one can't make allegedly homophobic statements or anti-semitic
statements or other kinds of statements there are lots of ways that freedom of speech does not exist
to express your you know personal convictions about life so um but the other things which do
exist the freedom uh to uh defame and insult the prophet um is supported at the highest
levels in the name of freedom so this kind of double standards this hypocrisy this selective
freedom of speech i think is very obvious indeed it's obvious to the rest of the world actually
and it's rooted deep in the french republic going back to 1789 the french revolution
uh which gave birth to secularism a particular militant kind of secularism we have secularism
in the uk but it's not quite so uh ferocious not quite so imposed by the state on on everyone
but the particular target today for um censure for uh discrimination and for censorship are muslims
and the european court doesn't seem to uphold their rights recently upheld the right of french
citizens french employers to discriminate against women wearing hijab in the workplace if it's so
desired it can fire them there's no freedom for women to uh where uh to dress modestly in the
workplace in france if you're a muslim woman anyway just wanted to uh get that off my chest
um basically insulting the prophet is freedom of speech making fun of
president macron is just wrong and um this is just ridiculous from my point of view as
a British citizen living in France at the moment it's hypocrisy there we are. Till next time.