President Emmanuel Macron called a New York Times writer to criticise English-language coverage of France’s stance on what it calls “Islamist separatism” after recent attacks, arguing it amounts to “legitimising” violence.
“When France was attacked five years ago, every nation in the world supported us,” Macron told Ben Smith during the call, which Smith described in his Sunday column.
“So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values … when I see them legitimising this violence, and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost.”
In his column about their exchange, Smith said the French president argued “foreign media failed to understand ‘laïcité’”, or secularism, a pillar of French policy and society.
