Salut!

Have a merry Boris sort of Christmas

 

 

All but cancelled, Christmas Day 2020 is upon us.

Salut! wishes all its readers as happy a festive season as events make possible and prays, or would do it it did pray, for a less troubling 2021.

 

Maybe we should try to find the bright side of grim happenings.

Macron, radicalisation and fighting Islamism without demonising Islam

By and large, Emmanuel Macron (photograph from the Elyseé Palace's official website) strikes me as being the best president France has had in decades.

 

I realise that isn't saying a great deal and certainly see that he has flaws: he can appear arrogant and dismissive of ordinary concerns and is, for such an intelligent man, occasionally clumsy with words. The charge of Islamophobia is absurd but some of his statements, during the recent controversy over the republication of cartoons Muslims find offensive, have been ill-judged. But he generally acts with a firmness, clarity and level of honesty too often lacking among modern political leaders. 

 

It is also important to recognise that the context of his recent declarations is the bloodshed and misery caused by hideous terrorist atrocities, even though it is utterly wrong to blame Muslims as a whole for the horrific crimes of those who claim to be acting in Islam's name. Now, Mr Macron and his government must act with care to demonstrate that their response to extremism is not capable of being misinterpreted. I explore these issues in my latest piece for The National, which the editor kindly permits me to reproduce here ...