Anti-Islam campaign in France: the background to the Redeker affair

Much of the French media and a number of prominent politicians have been quick to depict the polemic following Redeker’s vitriolic attack on Islam as a dispute about free speech, freedom of the press, a defence of the democratic principles of the French Republic and human rights. In fact, Redeker’s article was a deliberate provocation aimed at mobilising the most right-wing forces in France and abroad.

On September 19, a few days before Ramadan, Redeker published an article in Le Figaro, entitled, “In the face of Islamist intimidation, what must the free world do?”

In it he called the prophet Mohammed “a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and a polygamist.” He described the Koran as “a book of extraordinary violence” and Islam as a religion that “exalts violence.” Comparing Islam to Christianity, Redeker wrote, “Jesus is a master of love, Muhammad is a master of hatred.”

Redeker went on to claim that Islam was trying “to impose its rules on Europe,” for example, by demanding swimming pools adopt special hours for women only and forbidding caricatures of Mohammed.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/rede-o18.shtml