The muslim world what can you say to the muslim world today to school with the one whos emotionally messy that whatever is on her plate well 1st of all thank you for coming and you are right that our country has been struck 3 times by terrorist attacks carried out by extremists and violent extremists who in distorting and deforming islam have committed acts which have deeply shocked and wounded the people of france to the quick this act. The decapitation of a teacher because he was teaching freely and then in nice this 1st day in a church the basilica of our lady the decapitation of 2 people and the stabbing of a 3rd. France is still reeling from the shock of these 2 terrorist attacks and is at one and the same time feeling sadness unity and anger and for the 1st time when we experienced these events there were very Strong International relations amounting to attacks on fronts and a lot of misunderstanding us what which is why i want to dispel them things i saw on your social networks and on your channel so i thought this way i could dispel a lot of these misunderstandings if you will allow me though my 1st words will be addressed to the french whose faith is essentially catholic because theyve been very deeply wounded and i would like to convey to them all the support and protection of the republic just a few minutes ago i was in touch with the pope in order to convey that to him to then in a broader sense i would like to say that france is a country that is committed to freedom of worship and what is often called secularism is. A complex term which has given rise to many misunderstandings which i hope that i can attempt to dispel today there is it should be recalled freedom to believe or not to believe which makes a france a country in which we would like each and everyone to be a citizen irrespective of his or her religion. Where everyone irrespective of their religion has the same political and civic rights and a society in which people of all faiths can live and where these faiths can be practiced this is very important with transcendence as a place in our societies but the state must guarantee that right to everyone i want to say that contrie to what ive heard a great deal join the last couple of days our country is one which has no problem with any religion in the world because they can all be practiced here freely and as far as french muslims are concerned and indeed all muslim citizens throughout the world i want to say to them that france is a country where this religion is practiced freely and where there is no stigmatization. Everything that ive heard is quite wrong france is a country whose universal vocation is to be committed to people being able to live together irrespective of their religion. Many untrue things have been said and what i want to do here is to send out a message of resolve against all of violent extremists and at the same time convey a message of peace and unity and setting the record straight the filter value habit that is my Main Objective for this conversation with you today. More soul varying in mind that the muslims are the 1st to suffer violence they always paid a price with regard to the cartoons which have been published in france on more than 1. 00 occasion. That depicts the prophets of islam and muslims on each occasion muslims have been wounded shocked and at times misunderstood shockey. That to what extent can the feelings of muslims be taken into consideration. At all. Well you are coming back to that again and this immediately brings us to one of the misunderstandings that have surfaced in recent weeks a misunderstanding or origin of much manipulation that is if you allow me sometimes very seriously. Then with the issue of the caricature it is not a new subject let me remind you that for more than 15 years now there been terrible poll makes with denmark as well and with the support of france at the time and today its with france itself. On our country has its own history and this history consists of having built a public identity through in some senses withdrawing it from religion. This is what is often term secularism because 1st and foremost france has experienced a history with the catholic religion and weve elaborated our laws which of fruit of the spirit of the enlightenment our laws of the emanation of the french people a sovereign people and our laws in shrine the rights and freedoms of each and every one the freedom of worship which ive referred to a freedom that we defend and which is practiced in our country but also the freedom of conscience and free speech on this means that in our country france any journalist may freely express themselves about the president of their public the government the political majority or minority or the rest of the world and that idea of free speech also contains the freedom the possibility of drawing caricature was that is our right and it comes from way back in the end of the 19th century it is important to defend it because it belongs to the french people and we are in our own sovereign country this right has led to there being newspaper caricature wars which we have a history of and these cartoons of mock political leaders your humble servant being the 1st in line which is perfectly normal as well as religion all religions and so when we talk about caricature wars i want to know that many newspapers including Charlie Hebdo because theres been a lot of talk about that one of mainly caricature of the christian god the jewish religion rabbis excedrin and today and for some years now weve seen cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad or of the muslim religion i understand the feelings that this gives rise to i respect them but i need to understand what my role is my role is to calm things down which is what im doing here but it is also to protect these rights and there is an important difference here which all muslims who might have been shocked have to understand. This is not about whether franzen is representative in the figure of the president draws these cartoons or supports them as such that is not the issue because the press is free there are not official newspapers the french government did not draw these caricature wars the issue is about knowing whether the president agrees to prohibit these rights the answer is no because it is a right of the french people and it affects everybody so what is important for me is to protect that freedom i also want everything to be done with each and every person being respected but this freedom is very important to me so much of what has been said during these last weeks about caricature was we can condemn them and that is right as well as many other things that are done and also in other countries which are committed to free speech i find it perfectly normal the people react and say that they dont agree but there are 2 Different Things there that i cannot accept the 1st is the confusion which has been maintained by much of the media and sometimes also by political and religious leaders which consists in saying that these caricature laws are in some sense the project or the emanation of the french government or the president of the republican nominee you know im here to preserve this right of national always do so and there are people who exercise it thats how it is. And the 2nd thing that i cant condone is peoples justification either directly or indirectly of any form of violence will give im not a specialist in the ology but it is not my understanding that islam legitimize it or supports resorting to violence of any kind or. So i understand and respect the fact that people might be shocked by these caricature was i will never accept the visible violence is justified because of them. And i will always defend freedom of speech in my country the freedom to write to think and to draw this does not mean however that i personally support everything which is said with thought or drawn it simply means that these freedoms these human rights which have been created in france i believe that is our duty to protect them and thus to protect the sovereignty of the people of friendlies when the book of. Please almost cost me the president i am conveying to you questions which are occasionally asked in the arab and muslim world and which are based on statements made by yourself in this speech you made in homage to the teacher mr summers he was assassinated you said and i quote we will not give up the right to make your get yours or during. Even it with others may back down or resolve is clearly based on feeling the speech it was of the cuff and its seen by some people as being defiant rather than taking the feelings of muslims into consideration how do we assess this. Ill read it well ive just explained it 1st of all there have been a number of misunderstandings about the sentence you have just quoted and thank you for having quoted it literally the translations which have been made by a lot of the media in the arab world in which i have seen on social networks contain a lie a lie i was understood to have said that i support the humiliating caricature was made of the prophet i never said any such thing firstly because these same caricature was and this is important for all muslims who are listening to us are about all religions all of them. There are no caricature wars that are specifically against one religion rather than another one and in addition to this all the it is or implied the 2nd thing i said is that i was protecting their right because that is my role and i also believe that in our society we must accept and accomplish respect for one another but as president of the republic it is not up to me to water down that right because some people might be shocked if that is what i want you to understand because if i were to do so i would be setting up a sort of moral or religious order in my own country if i were to say to the people of writing or drawing that they dont have the right to say things like that because it shocks other people then little by little freedom of speech would be reduced because it would become a space in which we would not actually speak about one another. Herein lies the whole difficulty of this project which is collectively ours and i believe that it derives from the project of the enlightenment and the values which we hold dear it is not just a question of coexisting signed by side it is also a question of accepting that we can pass comment on one another calmly and with a kind of respect that i believe in and occasionally be able to mock one another irrespective of what our religion or philosophy might be and to accept that it be done within a framework that implies both respect and peace in terms of the sentence you quoted i think that the reaction of the muslim world was 1st and foremost a jew to numerous lies to the distortions are referred to and to the fact that people were led to believe that im in favor of these caricature was to these people i say that this is not the issue im in favor of people being able to write think and draw freely in my country because i think that it is important and that is their right and freedom and i understand that it can hurt and i respect that but we need to talk about it we need to talk about it we have to build a space of respect and mutual comprehension so i believe that the solution lies not in preventing this right and even less so in trying to justify violence of any sort as a result of being shocked. As to your son this is obviously something that is in all the headlines muslims any kind of characters. The they of moses jesus the virgin mary but they point out that its all too easy to publish or republish the drawings and current turns of mohammed a visit or of the prophet. Or repartition which implies that it is easier to caricature the prophet of islam than to caricature the others it is not of when it is the 1st of all in factual terms that is incorrect and it is historically incorrect to the catholics in france have sometimes been very shocked by what theyve seen and i know that jews have been too and so this is something that we have to discuss you know when it affects you personally we are not talking about caricature wars of religion but people can you may not like it but disliking something or being shocked by it does not justify violence i do not accept the idea that there is a kind of stigmatization no that is not right out also like to stress the fact that free speech is something much broader than mere cartoons but theyre part of it. But i think that it would be a mistake to fall into a kind of Chain Reaction of provocation i wanted to set the record straight for you 1st of all there is history. These drawings were done in france and france is not under islamic law france is under the law of the sovereign french people it is the law they decide on and more specifically these laws come down to us from the 19th century who are my to say that because a particular religion has an issue with such and such a representation or word i should ban it i cant do that and i do not think that it is my duty to do so and so what i want and this is my message is that together i want to remove the false suds and the ambiguities and i want to say to all the muslims of the world that in your countries there are things that certain religions do not necessarily like perhaps including some french nationals but do they attack you because they dont like it because they are shocked that no we have to learn how to get to know one another and understand where our laws and customs come from but there is nothing in these caricature laws in this freedom of speech which is done against a particular religion whichever it is and specifically not against islam that is very important for our country whereas in many countries throughout the world and this is something that i note with sadness freedom of speech has declined over the decades why because they have been arguments fear and the chaos created by reaction. So what we see is a kind of shrinking of this freedom to draw to discuss sometimes to provoke and i believe that this is grievous for the freedom of everyone. So you must believe that i your humble servant for as long as im president of the French Republic will respect all the citizens of france as well as all the citizens of the world irrespective of what their religion is im committed to that respect but i want you to understand what the exercise of this freedom is in france and in other countries another mark of my respect is to treat muslims like people of all other religions im trying to establish the kind of respect that can accept human differences while it is true that at times some things can shock people one does not mean that one should prohibit or reduce them we should be able to talk about. Often when people talk about islam in france muslim site and to some it isnt they say why are they laws which penalize and to some it is and while the debates which close of certain historical facts revisionism is for example which ring fence by french law we yes i can confirm. Is it not possible to have a law and that would protect their holy symbols. Allo you confusing 2 things here history the Mutual Respect of different peoples and religion france is fighting antisemitism and racism in all their force and antisemitism as such is an attack and a hatred against a people in fact against all peoples and to semitism and racism in france are fought against and predicted by law but is not just a case of anti semitism other that would be wrong it is forms of racism but in the same way as we are saying just now in france one has the right to do caricature laws and to criticize the jewish religion like all religions so there is no double standard or double statute it would be wrong to say done wrong there is indeed a law in france which penalizes historical revisionism because many people build their anti semitism on a denial of the shoah that is a fact but in france we do not question historical fact we do not go searching in other countries for a denial of such and such a genocide or teach a not in front that we recognize things as they are including moreover the crimes we ourselves have committed let me remind you that 25 years ago Jacques Chirac acknowledged the responsibility of the french stage during world war 2 and weve even acknowledged or was done in the name of slavery and colonialization so france looks at its true history in the face but we understand that others look at it too and we try to avoid hatred being fed through a revised and falsely corrected history you have to remember that it is not the government the right history that is the job of historians or forms of racism and anti semitism or 4th against in france by law which of course does not mean that they do not exist they do and they are a terrible scourge and we struggle with them i have asked the government to do even more right from the beginning of my term of office as indeed was the case with my predecessors whatever their political persuasion i have fought against it mainly because a lot of violent acts have been committed against the jews in france during recent years but they have also been acts carried out in the name of racism which are unacceptable we fight against all of them and all of these acts in the same way. There is as i said the possibility of criticizing religions and people carry out acts against certain religions with regard to this and i hope that im making myself Crystal Clear here i want us to be intractable however these days in france there are people who commit acts against muslims because theyre muslims against catholics because theyre catholics against protestants because theyre protestants against jews because theyre jews and so on and so i instructed the minister of the interior to entrust the parliamentarian with responsibility of identifying the following through and building transparency with regard to all acts committed on religious grounds against our fellow citizens on french territory. Of highly critical. In the wake of the criticism that france has undergone over the last weeks there ensued could a campaign what is your reaction to get out of them as it were only 10 years ago and then it is outrageous and i condemn it it is being done by certain private groups because they havent understood it because they relied on false and caricature was sometimes from other leaders on it is unacceptable you have to understand what is happening on the issue of the cartoons because in front of us which is a sovereign country of i decide that the right it is the law endorsed by the sovereign people what should we apply to and that i should then try to calm things down but i say that im not going to ruin a gormless right because that would be unconstitutional and it would represent a terrible loss of sovereignty for us because people confuse my position which i consider to be unassailable so they start attacking a state that as i said to many of the leaders in france the press is free in many of the countries calling for a boycott there is no longer any free press which means that there is no longer any possibility of drawing caricatural of not only of the Prophet Muhammad or god or moses or jesus or anyone but even of the leaders of their