Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Tuesday April 20 that the Pakistani government would call for a vote in parliament on Tuesday to decide whether or not to expel Marc Baréty, the French ambassador, in an attempt to appease a radical Islamist party which threatened to continue a violent campaign to obtain his dismissal.

The extremist Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) party has agreed to cancel demonstrations across the country, the interior minister said.

The motion is not binding and it will be up to the government to decide whether or not to implement it.

Successive governments have often ignored such resolutions in the past.

The TLP could not immediately be reached to confirm this agreement.

Deadly clashes

The party has been at the origin of an anti-France campaign since French President Emmanuel Macron defended the right to cartoon in the name of freedom of expression.

He spoke during the tribute to a teacher killed on October 16 after showing satirical drawings to his class, in the wake of the republication of representations of the Prophet Muhammad by the weekly Charlie Hebdo.

The protests have escalated into deadly clashes with police for a week across the country.

They were triggered by the arrest of Saad Rizvi, the head of the TLP, hours after his call for a march on April 20 in Islamabad to demand the expulsion of the French ambassador.

Several police officers were killed and 11 were held hostage for several hours by TLP activists, near the party mosque in Lahore (East) where hundreds of its supporters are still gathered.

The TLP says several of its supporters were killed and many injured.

The French embassy on Thursday called on its nationals to temporarily leave the country, a call that seems for the moment to have been largely ignored.

On Monday, she asked those who have chosen to stay to avoid rallies and to observe "the utmost caution".

The government announced on Wednesday that the TLP would now be banned, calling it a terrorist group, and arrested thousands of protesters during the clashes.

But Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Tuesday that no prosecution would be brought against them, including those arrested under anti-terrorism legislation.

With AFP and Reuters

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