let us turn now to france there are
tensions that are escalating between
france and also some muslim majority
countries
it's over president emmanuel macron's
pledge to tackle radical islam
in the wake of a killing of a french
teacher turkey has been the most vocal
so far
here's what president recep tayyip
erdogan had to say today
i am now telling my nation just as they
are saying in france
not to buy anything from turkish brands
i call on my nation here and now
do not pay attention to french labelled
goods
do not buy them
well the row started after the french
president pledged to defend secularism
following the beheading of teacher
samuel petty
that you see here he had shown cartoons
of the prophet muhammad to his class
two weeks before the attack mr macron
had called islam a religion in crisis
and he promised to tackle what he called
islamist separatism over the weekend
turkey's president
hit back and stepped up his rhetoric
telling president macron that he needed
mental health checks for speaking out so
forcefully on islam
france responded by recalling its
ambassador to turkey
and the president tweeted he said 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
well for more background on this here's
eche goxadev from bbc's turkish service
the problems between both countries have
been surfaced since
last late last year actually because the
two countries are supporting
opposing sites in libya syria eastern
mediterranean and now that's in
nagorno-karabakh but especially after
macron's um macron's words about
islam after he described islam as a
religion in crisis
i don't change his um tone actually
erdogan he started to use this rhetoric
of islamophobia in france uh it's in his
words
um and he changed his rhetoric and for
the last couple of days he never passed
any speech without mentioning macron and
without mentioning this rhetoric
but turkey is not the only country to be
raising objections let's take a look at
a letter from the pakistani prime
minister imran khan to the facebook
chief executive mark zuckerberg
he was asking for a ban on islamophobic
content on the website
he raises the publication of the
cartoons and says
this will lead to further polarization
and marginalization of muslims in france
we've seen how marginalization
inevitably leads to extremism something
the world does not need now
across parts of the arab world the
boycott of french goods it's already
underway let's take a look this is
french cosmetic products you see them
there being covered at a shop in jordan
that sign says in solidarity with
prophet muhammad
peace be upon him all french products
are boycotted
and here instead french products been
removed from the shelves at a
supermarket in
qatar france's muslim council they say
that muslims are not persecuted in
france and that they can freely practice
their religion
earlier the french government confirmed
it is not planning a reciprocal boycott
against turkey let's hear
you scofield in paris with more on the
boycott and also the comments from
president erdogan
together they do there's no question
about it add up in french minds to a
fully blown
diplomatic crisis which is why the
ambassador
has been recalled from ancient
consultations and why the whole of the
french diplomatic corps
is being told to sort of go on the
offensive
to make the french case and that means
repeating over and over again the french
view of all this
which is that no muslims in france are
not treated like jews
in europe in the 1930s um
that there has been an awful lot of
false propaganda and reporting around
all of this for example
the footballer paul pogba is not about
to leave
the french football team because of his
muslim
sensibilities and no the cartoons have
not been projected
from the buildings of town halls in in
the south of france
what that was was the projection of
cartoons by uh charlie hebdo but not the
cartoons of the prophet muhammad again
misreporting creating a sense of um
anti-french hostility and in general i
think the point is could be made that
when president macron's supports the
cartoons he's not saying i support the
muhammad cartoons i'm
supporting the right of publication of
those cartoons and that's two distinct
things in french music and that
distinction they believe is not fully
understood in the arab world