Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06PARIS915
2006-02-13 17:49:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Paris
Cable title:  

FRENCH MUSLIM PROTESTS OF MOHAMMED CARTOONS GROW

Tags:  PREL KISL KDEM PTER IR TU FR 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO5372
OO RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHFR #0915/01 0441749
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 131749Z FEB 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4200
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 000915 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/20/2016
TAGS: PREL KISL KDEM PTER IR TU FR
SUBJECT: FRENCH MUSLIM PROTESTS OF MOHAMMED CARTOONS GROW
IN SIZE, REMAIN PEACEFUL

REF: PARIS 754

Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Bruce Turner, reasons 1.4 (b)
and (d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 000915

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/20/2016
TAGS: PREL KISL KDEM PTER IR TU FR
SUBJECT: FRENCH MUSLIM PROTESTS OF MOHAMMED CARTOONS GROW
IN SIZE, REMAIN PEACEFUL

REF: PARIS 754

Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Bruce Turner, reasons 1.4 (b)
and (d).


1. (C) Summary: Two weekend protests in Paris and Strasbourg
were the largest so far in France on the cartoon controversy,
but the gatherings remained peaceful and took place without
incident. Both gatherings were initiated by groups outside
the mainstream of French Muslim organizations, which have
called for legal recourse while discouraging street protests.
The larger Paris protest numbered over 7,000 and was
noteworthy for its orderly manner, while the smaller,
Strasbourg gathering attracted about 2,200 and was led by an
activist known for anti-Semitic statements. Contacts with
the moderate Paris Mosque criticized the organizers of the
February 11 Paris protest as opportunistic, and continue to
dismiss prospects for unrest among French Muslims, whom they
describe as overwhelmingly secular and unfazed by the
controversy. With respect to possible threats to French
interests in the Muslim world, MFA contacts described the
situation as calming down overall, though they described
Turkey and Iran as particular countries of concern. MFA
contacts concurred with U.S. views that Syria and Iran had
sought to manipulate the crisis; the MFA summoned the Iranian
charge in Paris to protest the lack of official protection
during February 10 Tehran protests in which the French
embassy was hit by rocks and molotov cocktails, and publicly
rebuked Iran for failure to provide sufficient protection.
End summary.


2. (SBU) The February 8 publication of new Mohammed cartoons
(as well as the original Danish caricatures) by the marginal
French satirical weekly "Charlie Hebdo" prompted a new wave
of criticism by the GoF's official Muslim interlocutor, the
Council for the French Muslim Faith (CFCM),which sued
unsuccessfully to prevent the publication's release and has
announced plans for a follow-up lawsuit on the basis of
French restrictions on racist speech. The GoF shifted its
response to the cartoon controversy towards urging greater

media restraint following the "Charlie Hebdo" release, which
sold out on the morning of publication and prompted an
unprecedented supplemental print run of 300,000 (for a paper
which usually prints 85,000 copies). In a communique
released February 8, President Chirac condemned "dangerous
provocations likely to kindle passions further," and added
that "everything that can offend the convictions of others --
religious convictions in particular -- should be avoided." A
poll published February 8 showed public opinion moving in the
direction of greater media restraint, with 54 percent of
respondents agreeing it was wrong for the French newspapers
to have printed Mohammed caricatures, though a similar number
questioned the level of indignation generated by the
drawings.


3. (U) While the CFCM continues to counsel restraint and call
for legal recourse, some smaller, hard-line Islamic
organizations outside the CFCM have called for public
protests, thus far eschewed by the CFCM's main component
groups. On February 11, the largest cartoon-related protest
so far took place in Paris, numbering some 7,200 people,
according to police estimates. The gathering was organized
by the Union of Muslim Associations of Seine-St. Denis, a
fundamentalist grouping based in the Parisian suburbs which
has been a frequent critic of the CFCM and was founded by
former members of the fundamentalist Union for Islamic
Organizations in France (UOIF),the third-largest grouping
within the CFCM. Press reporting commented on the
well-organized nature of the march, which included several
hundred women and children and in which protesters carried
relatively uniform banners, with slogans such as "Yes to
expression, no to provocation," "Don't touch my prophet," and
"CFCM, where are you?" A February 12 Strasbourg protest
numbered about 2,200 and was organized by the radical-leaning
"Muslim Party of France," whose leader, Mohammed Latreche, is
known for making anti-Semitic remarks and has in the past
organized protests against Israel, the French ban on
headscarves in public schools, and false allegations of
abuses at Guantanamo.

PARIS MOSQUE ON PARIS PROTEST, CALM AMONG FRENCH MUSLIMS
-------------- --------------


4. (C) Slimane Naddour, spokesman for the moderate Paris
Grand Mosque (which heads the CFCM and works closely with the
GoF),in a private discussion with us February 13, described
organizers of the February 11 Paris protest as largely
uneducated, "self-declared" imams who had tried to exploit
the cartoon issue to gain support and discredit the CFCM.
Naddour questioned the police estimate of 7,200 protesters,
and estimated the crowd as closer to 4,000. He conceded that

PARIS 00000915 002 OF 002


the turnout was higher than he expected, but concluded that
the marchers were not all affiliated with the Seine-St. Denis
Union of Muslim Associations, which he speculated had
received help from the UOIF in exhorting local mosque-goers
to attend and sending SMS and internet messages to publicize
the event. Naddour noted that both the UOIF and St. Seine
Denis Union of Muslim associations had called for adoption of
a new French law outlawing "Islamophobic" speech, a new
initiative which he viewed as having no chance of success but
giving both organizations the opportunity to reposition
themselves vis-a-vis other rival Muslim organizations. The
Paris Mosque had declined to endorse the so-called
"Islamophobia ban," and instead was advocating exhausting
legal means to protest the offensive cartoons.


5. (C) Naddour was resolute in the conclusion that the
cartoons would not generate unrest among French Muslims. He
described the majority of French Muslims as unfazed by the
cartoon controversy, as French Muslims understood freedom of
expression and were "90 percent non-practicing." According
to Naddour, those French Muslims who were offended by the
cartoons were not upset by the act of reproducing Mohammed's
image, but rather opposed the cartoons' insinuation that the
prophet Mohammed, and thereby all Muslims, were terrorists.
Naddour conceded that the CFCM lawsuit was not likely to
succeed, citing a past, unsuccessful lawsuit which the Paris
Mosque had filed against a noted French writer, Michel
Houellebecq, for making statements defaming Muslims. Naddour
explained that the CFCM needed to show that it was responding
to the cartoons as well as reinforce the importance of rule
of law, in order not to give radical Islamic groups
additional fodder for exploitation. Naddour concluded that
the subdued French Muslim reaction to the controversy was
proof of the community's maturity, civic-mindedness and
largely secular orientation.

MFA CONCERNED ABOUT TURKEY, PROTESTS IRAN'S LACK OF PROTECTION
-------------- --------------


6. (C) Meanwhile, in a conversation with poloff February 13
about French security considerations overseas, MFA Cabinet
Advisor for the Middle East Christophe Guilhou described the
cartoon controversy as calming overall, with the exception of
Turkey and Iran. In Turkey, he noted, the GoF was concerned
by nationalist protests before the French consulate general
in Istanbul, which had taken on an increasingly strident
tone. In Iran, protesters threw rocks and molotov cocktails
at the French embassy during protests February 10, a sign of
rising tensions which the GoF attributed to Iranian
government instigation. On this point, Guilhou described the
GoF as in full agreement with U.S. statements that Syria and
Iran were seeking to manipulate the crisis for political
ends. In the first public rebuke of Iran on the issue, the
MFA spokesman declared February 13 that the Iranian
government had not provided sufficient protection for the
French embassy in Tehran during the February 10 protest, and
accused the GOI of reacting too late to prevent protesters
from damaging the facility. The spokesman also called for
Iranian authorities to take "all necessary measures to
prevent a repetition of such inadmissible acts" and confirmed
that the GoF had convoked the Iranian charge d'affaires in
Paris to remind him of Iran's Vienna Convention obligations.
Even with the incidents in Iran, Guilhou concluded that the
cartoon crisis appeared to be calming overall, with
increasing recognition, in the French media in particular,
that there had been "excesses" on both sides.

COMMENT
--------------


7. (C) We agree that prospects for domestic unrest over the
Mohammed cartoons appear slim, given France's largely
non-practicing Muslim population and the restraint which has
been displayed across the spectrum of France's chronically
disunited Muslim religious groups, even those seeking to
protest publicly and score points over rivals. The one
winner domestically appears to be the marginal publications
that originally published the offending caricutures, which
sold an unprecendented number of issues and, in the case of
"France Soir" (the first French paper to reprint the Danish
cartoons February 1),had been struggling financially. For
the USG, a positive consequence is the GoF's readiness to
recognize Iranian and Syrian manipulation of the issue, and
its increased willingness to call the Iranians on this
publicly.

Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm

Stapleton