Calls are growing in parts of the Muslim world to boycott French goods in protest against President Emmanuel Macron's public defending of the Prophet Muhammad's caricatures, which are blasphemous to Islam.
Macron's comments came last week in honor of murdered high school teacher Samuel Patty, who was beheaded earlier this month during a terrorist attack in a northern suburb of Paris.
Patty is murdered after showing a cartoon of the Prophet during a class on freedom of expression.
Macron said France would not "give up" on the cartoons and pledged to confront Islamic extremists in the country, which sparked demonstrations and led to a boycott of Muslim-majority countries.
"I invite people, do not approach French goods and do not buy them," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday during a speech in the capital, Ankara. European leaders should say "stop" to Macron and his hate campaign.
In Kuwait, a nongovernmental hypermarket chain said that more than 50 of its outlets are planning to boycott French products. A boycott campaign is also under way in Jordan, where some grocery stores have posted signs declaring that they do not sell French goods.
There are a handful of stores in Qatar that do the same thing, including the Al Meera supermarket chain, which has more than 50 branches in the Arab country. Qatar University also said it is postponing its French Cultural Week indefinitely.
The killing of Patty has reignited tensions over secularism, Islamism and Islamophobia in France, but public anger in Muslim countries over Macron's handling of the attack threatens to make it a diplomatic and economic issue as well.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the French Foreign Ministry described the boycott of its products as "unjustified", and demanded "to stop them immediately."
The ministry said that the reaction distorted the president's statements for political purposes, and that "the positions that France defended in favor of freedom of belief, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and rejecting any call for hatred."
The statement added that Macron's policies were aimed at "fighting radical Islam and fighting the Muslims of France, who are an integral part of society, history and the French Republic."
A teacher is beheaded, and France's war on secularism, freedom of expression and religious equality begins again
"We will never give up," Macron said on Twitter on Sunday. "We respect all differences with a spirit of peace. We do not accept hate speech and advocate reasonable debate. We will always be on the side of human dignity and universal values."
Patty's death sparked a security crackdown in France, with officials targeting hate speech on social media and nonprofits with potential links to Islamism.
The caricature Muhammad used by Patti in his class originally appeared in Charlie Hebdo and was cited as the motivation for a terrorist attack on the satirical magazine in 2015 that left 12 people dead. Macron vehemently defended the right to exhibit such cartoons in France at Patti's memorial service.
The French president said France will continue "loving discussions and reasonable arguments, and we will love science and its differences." We will not give up cartoons and drawings even if others decline.
Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt and Iran are among the Muslim countries that have condemned France for publishing the cartoons, and Macron responded.
"We condemn the publication of satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad," Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
Pakistani leader Imran Khan, the highest religious authority in Egypt, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, and the Iranian Foreign Ministry, also criticized France.
But fellow European leaders have spoken of their support for Macron, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose spokesperson quickly denounced Erdogan's comments on Monday.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Berlin stands in solidarity with Paris. The leaders of Greece and Austria also expressed their support for Macron.
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