France issues strong condemnation to Pakistani minister’s 'insulting' tweet

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a videoconference with representatives of the sporting world at the Elysee Palace in Paris on November 17, 2020. (AFP)

• Coverage of Macron’s charter was widely understood as saying an ID number would be issued exclusively to Muslim children
• Pakistan’s human rights minister compared France's new laws to anti-semitism in Nazi Germany in a tweet that has since been deleted

ISLAMABAD: The French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs on Sunday issued a strong rebuke to a tweet by Pakistan’s minister for human rights, Shireen Mazari, in which the minister compared certain measures in President Emmanuel Macron’s newly issued ‘Charter of Republican Values’ to racism in Nazi Germany.
On Wednesday, Macron unveiled the charter and asked Muslim leaders in France to agree to its instructions as part of a broad clampdown on Islamic extremism. The French President gave the French Council of the Muslim Faith 15 days to work with the interior ministry.
As part of the charter that seeks to prevent ‘radicalization’ in the wake of three recent militant attacks in France, there are restrictions on home-schooling among other measures. An identification number is to be assigned to all children of school-going age under the law, to ensure they are attending school.
Coverage of the charter was widely interpreted on social media as saying identification numbers would be issued exclusively to Muslim children, and drew the ire of numerous Pakistanis on Twitter.
The human rights minister too referred to an incorrect quotation from the charter in an article by online news platform ‘The Muslim Vibe,’ which has since then been retracted and clarified.
On Saturday, Mazari tweeted, “Macron is doing to the Muslims what the Nazis did to the Jews-- Muslim children will get ID numbers (other children won’t) just as jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothes for identification.”
In response to Mazari, the French foreign affairs ministry issued a statement that was tweeted by the French embassy in Pakistan, calling the minister’s words “insulting...blatant lies, loaded with an ideology of hatred and violence.”
The strongly worded statement, a deviation from standard diplomatic norms, asked Pakistan to “return to the path of dialogue based on respect.”
On Sunday evening, Mazari tweeted a message from the French ambassador clarifying that the Muslim Vibe article she had referenced earlier had been rectified.
“...As the article I had cited has been corrected by the relevant publication, I have also deleted my tweet on the same,” Mazari said on Twitter.
Sunday’s heated exchange is the latest in rising Pakistan-France tensions. Last week, massive protests in Pakistan called for the expulsion of the French ambassador and the boycotting of French goods.
Last month, in the wake of new violence that erupted amid Macron’s defence of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote a letter slamming what he termed the French President’s ‘anti-Muslim’ stance.