France must be decisive against the Political Islam, Macron says

Paris- Special to the Reference

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed an ‘intractable’ fight against ‘political Islam,’ which he said seeks secession from the French Republic. His comments left many puzzled about his goals.

“We are talking about people who, in the name of a religion, pursue a political project,” he said.

“A political Islam that wants to secede from our Republic,” against which he asked the government to be “intractable”, Macron added.

Macron also gave a ringing defense of French secularism, and called out “communitarianism.”

“We must not hide ourselves when we talk about secularism, we do not really talk about secularism, we talk about the communitarianism that has settled in certain districts of the Republic,” Macron said, referring to Muslim communities.

French citizens gave mixed reactions on social media to the president’s remarks, some posing their own questions in response.

The government has in recent months worked to strengthen the enforcement of a 1905 law mandating a separation of church and state, Macron said, threatening to shut down “more associations or cultural institutions when they do not respect the rules of the Republic."

The move appears to make good on a statement Macron gave last year, saying he wanted to create an “Islam of France,” wherein the government would “set down markers on the entire way in which Islam is organized” in the country.