French Interior Minister Gerald Dermanane is visiting Tunisia and Algeria to discuss issues related to security and immigration in the wake of the Nice attack, and while French Prime Minister Jean Castex called for an ideological battle against what he called extremist political Islam, protests against the insulting cartoons of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, continue in the Islamic world.
On Monday, Dermanan announced in statements to the French TV station BFM that he would visit Tunisia this week and discuss security issues with his counterparts in the two countries.
The station said on its website that next Friday he will start a tour that will include Malta, in addition to Tunisia and Algeria.
Yesterday, Sunday, the French presidency announced that President Emmanuel Macron had asked his interior minister to head this week to meet his Tunisian counterpart Tawfiq Sharafeddine.
The French minister is heading to Tunisia after a conversation that took place on Saturday between Macron and his Tunisian counterpart, Qais Saeed, during which they agreed to strengthen cooperation in the fight against terrorism, and they discussed the return of Tunisians who are obligated to leave French territory, and among them, who are on the security list of the French intelligence, according to a statement by the French presidency.
The conversation also dealt with irregular migration, and the solutions that must be reached together to address this phenomenon, which is exacerbated from time to time, in order to achieve political goals, according to the text of the statement.
The French newspaper "Le Parisien" said that Said agreed to facilitate the granting of consular permits to Tunisians who are in France illegally, and is suspected of being radicalized. In their extremism.
The newspaper added that the French minister had pledged in the middle of last month to expedite the deportation of 231 Tunisians who had entered France illegally, and who were suspected of being radicalized.
Paris decided to send Dermanan to Tunisia after investigations found that the perpetrator of the attack that took place in Nice Thursday, killing three people, a Tunisian named Ibrahim El-Essawi (21 years old), who arrived in Europe illegally via the Italian island of Lampedusa, last September 20, He arrived in Nice a day or two before the attack.
The Tunisian authorities confirmed that Al-Issawi, whose family resides in the governorate of Sfax (central-eastern Tunisia), was not included in the lists of extremism and terrorism.
On Saturday, Tunisian Prime Minister Hicham El Mechichi called on the Ministers of Interior and Justice to fully cooperate with the French authorities in the investigation into the Nice attack.
Castex spoke about an enemy that wants to divide the French (Reuters)
An ideological battle
For his part, French Prime Minister Jean Castex called on the French to engage in what he described as an ideological battle against extremist political Islam, and condemned what he described as the bargains that he said political parties and intellectuals had carried out for years with Islamic extremism.
Castex warned in an interview with "TF1" that the battle is ideological, and that whoever described it as an enemy seeks to divide the French by spreading hatred and violence, and to cause a rift in society.
He said that the first way to win this war is to unite French society and be proud of its identity, freedom, and republican system, stressing the need to win the battle that he calls for.
Demonstrators in Dhaka raised banners denouncing the French president's stance on the cartoons of the Messenger (Anadolu Agency)
Demonstrations against the cartoons
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people demonstrated today in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, to denounce the insulting cartoons of the Messenger, which were recently published in France, which sparked security and diplomatic tensions, and caused a campaign of boycotts of French products in several Islamic countries.
Police said 50,000 people participated in the demonstration, which called for a boycott of French products, while the organizers spoke of 100,000 demonstrators.
The protesters tried to go towards the French embassy, but security forces prevented them from advancing.
In the Indonesian capital, hundreds took to the streets today to protest against the French president's stance on the cartoons of the Prophet.
The demonstrators carried banners calling for a boycott of French products and to stand in support of the Prophet.
The new protests in Bangladesh and Indonesia came after an interview with President Emmanuel Macron, in which he told Al Jazeera that he understood the shock Muslims were feeling.
In the same context, a group of youth forums and Islamic leagues in Europe sent an open letter to Macron, asking him to reconsider what it called the attack on Muslims and their Prophet.
The signatories to the statement criticized the method used by Macron to deal with the repercussions of the killing of teacher Samuel Patti, saying that it was not wise, but it extended more encouragement to their description of racists and extremists who resort to violence.
The statement described the closure of mosques and the raid on civil organizations as opportunistic behavior, and a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.