PARIS:
France’s interior minister denounced racist comments Saturday and defendedhis greetings to French Muslims commemorating the beginning of the holymonth of Ramazan.
Gerald Darmanin took to social media to post a message condemning “ordinaryracism” for his tweet April 1 that wished all Muslims in France a “happyRamadan.”
“Yesterday I wished a happy Ramadan to our Muslim compatriots. Since then,many comments, a bit racist, evoked that I did not wish a happy birthday toChristians or Jews. This is obviously wrong,” wrote Darmanin, adding linksto his previous greetings for Christmas, Easter, Hanukkah and Rosh Hashanahcelebrations.
“I hope those who share this fake information with an extremist mindapologise for these unjust attacks. In the meantime, yes, happy Ramadan,”he added.
His Ramazan greeting tweet in question was liked by 125,000 users andretweeted more than 3,500 times, as of late Saturday.
The more than 3,100 responses to the tweet include those that accused himof hypocrisy, while others criticised the minister for violating theprinciple of secularism and for attempting to woo Muslims ahead of theupcoming presidential elections on April 10.
“Did you also wish a Happy Lent to all Catholics? The beginning of Lent wason March 02 for your information and I did not see any electoral tweet onthe subject,” said user @GabyChris54.
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“I didn’t know that France was a Muslim country. It’s new, it just cameout,” said @Amarelysfleur.
Addressing the minister by his Algerian Muslim middle name, @Lalluzze,said: “Thanks, Moussa. Know that the State and the Church have beenseparated in France since 1905. As a member of the government, you mustrespect the principle of secularism.”
French journalist and activist Sihame Assbague, said: “Coming from aminister who has energetically participated in the criminalisation,repression and/or dissolution of a number of Muslim figures and structures& who never ceases to feed the colonial management of Muslim culture, it’sdamn cheeky all the same.”
As the head of the Interior Ministry under the government of PresidentEmmanuel Macron, Darmanin is known for implementing policies to fight thosewith “separatist” ideologies.
He pushed for controversial legislation dubbed the anti-separatism law andknown officially as “reinforcing the respect of the principles of theRepublic,” adopted in July 2021. The law has been criticised for singlingout Muslims. -Anadolu Agency
