Where has our humanity gone?” exclaimed Nicolas Hulot* “Has France, once the country of human rights, become only the country of the declaration of human rights? (…) Is it the legitimate fear of terrorism that we are abusively transferring to this phenomenon? Are we prisoners of our amalgams? (…) Damn our closed eyes! What is often lacking in French leaders is a lack of compassion, of humanism… It is well known that “happy” people do not like to be told about sad things. The pain of the weak is reinforced by the weakness and indifference of the rich.

Where has the goodness, generosity, altruism, “benevolence” of France gone. Where has this great country gone, the builder of freedom, democracy, solidarity, entente cordiale and the convergence of differences beyond all cultures, identities and confessions.

Where has this great country gone that had become over time a crossroads where people spoke above all of man and his values without dogma or ideology, in complete freedom?

Where has this great country gone that was synonymous with living together, respect, culture, dialogue, knowledge and recognition of the Other?

In a cultural context of depersonalization, when living together flinches, when the pride of belonging to a universal ideal fades, when the ideal of a humanity to be made together, which seems to be the promise of a better world by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of South African apartheid, is simply banished, one understands the return of ethno-nationalism, which provokes hateful tragedies and rejection of the other.

To be quite frank, Mr. President, lately I have been surprised and very annoyed by some of your statements, proposals and suggestions and those of some ministers, journalists and intellectuals in the debate on separatism or after the murder of Samuel Paty. At times, there is talk of amending the Constitution; the Minister of the Interior worries about “halal kitchen shelves” in hypermarkets; journalists demand that the Council of State, the Constitutional Council and the European Court of Justice be silenced so that nothing can stand in the way of arbitrary administrative orders against “Muslims.

When I read your speech, Mr. President, on 21/10/2020, in homage and in memory of Samuel Paty, I can assure you that we too have had no words “to evoke the fight against political and radical Islamism, which leads to terrorism”.

The murder of Samuel Paty, savagely decapitated on October 16, 2020, in Yvelines in France, perpetrated by a Muslim fanatic of Chechen origin, a tragic event that has put our humanity to the test. And it must be admitted that as a Muslim, I feel directly concerned by this tragic event, I feel really very sad and dismayed more than anyone else by this kind of very heinous acts. We are witnessing, passive and powerless, a cascade of horror. It is to who will innovate in barbarism and revenge. Certainly, this kind of acts is perpetrated in the name of an ideology which has nothing to do with Islam, which is the antipodes of the ethics of our religion, but the explicit religious claim of their authors remains very trying for the conscience of the majority of Muslims.

I obviously condemn this abominable attack and I consider, as you do, Mr. President, that freedom of expression and opinion are at the basis of universal human rights to which I totally subscribe.

Except that the unfortunate amalgam that you have established de facto and even implicitly between Islam and terrorism and your public commitment not to renounce the cartoons that are perceived as provocation and offensive to the prophet and Islam by all Muslims – of faith and culture – with the excessive terms of an outrageous secularism has really surprised us by its magnitude. Thus, you have taken up the cause of transgression.