Pascal Crittin, Director of RTS,
How can you let a guest make shocking and untrue statements without reacting? Today, Thursday, January 13, in the 12h45 from RTS, with guest Ugo Palheta, co-author of the book Facing the fascist threat, developing arguments in response to a question about ’Islamophobia«, asserted that France, through its military interventions «in Mali and Central African Republic»(no doubt he meant Burkina Faso in the latter case, as the Central African Republic is very largely Christian), helped to construct an image of Islam and Muslims as an «external enemy».
This discourse is false and dangerous. France is intervening militarily in the Sahel against jihadist organizations, which commit atrocities and whose aim is to establish Islamist regimes, which a large proportion of the indigenous populations do not want, either because they have already experienced such regimes, or because they never want to have to do so.
It's worth noting that the argument of French military interventions in Syria and Iraq is the one (among others) used by the perpetrators of the November 13, 2015 attacks, whose alleged accomplices are currently on trial in Paris, to justify their acts. Of course, I'm not saying that Mr. Palheta doesn't condemn these acts, that they don't horrify him as they do all of us - that wouldn't make sense. What I am criticizing him for is a discourse that may lead one to believe that France provoked the crimes it suffered on its territory. But that's forgetting the hatred and resentment against the West that Islamist ideology has been fostering for many decades.
Then there's the fact that, in the years leading up to the 2015 attacks in France, figures from political Islam in France (some of them allied with the Manif pour tous, or even close to the anti-Semitic Alain Soral), were quietly talking about the benefits of installing a Salafist-style Islamist regime in Mali, a country that had «every right to live out its experiences".».
Read also, by the same author Alain Soral, «extreme right» and that's it?
The fact that Mr. Palheta, in his contribution to today's 12:45 program, fails to distinguish between Islam and Islamism, between Muslims and Islamists, will come as no surprise to those (many of whom are quite happy to live in society with Muslims) who are interested in these issues and who, for their part, make this crucial distinction between faith in God and a politico-religious ideology.
Mr. Palheta is perhaps one of those who believe that the fight against Islamism, whether armed abroad or political in Europe or elsewhere, is part of a neo-colonial vision, that Islamism is nothing more than an expression of the identity and militancy of Muslims who, as we shall see, have every right to do what they want with Islam (except kill, of course), given France's colonial past, etc.
You should know, Mr. Director, that many Muslims, most of them progressive, have had enough of this supposedly supportive but in reality miserabilistic vision, and that, either having been through Islamism themselves, or having suffered from it, or having rubbed shoulders with it, no longer want to hear that Islamist regimes can be good for Muslims in the name of a differentialism worthy of the reactionary New Right, or that French military interventions in the Sahel would create "new forms of oppression". «the image of a «enemy from outside».
We cannot, in the name of the necessary fight against the extreme right and its dangers, abdicate in the face of Islamism. To do so would be cowardly and would only increase the push of the extreme right. Anyone acting in good faith understands, moreover, that the Islamist attacks of 2015, 2016 and 2017 helped fuel the far-right vote and strengthen a threatening ultra-right. This was even one of the aims of these terrorists: to provoke chaos in our democracies.
So, please, Mr. Director, when confusing remarks like those made today are made on your set, it would be a good idea, at the very least, to reply with a question. We can't cover up and denounce the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, as you do, and not react when someone says that French military interventions in the Sahel are helping to build the image of the Taliban. «Muslim»as «external enemy». The Democrats' line is clear: neither extreme right, nor Islamism.
Yours sincerely,
Antoine Menusier
Antoine Menusier is a journalist. Editor-in-chief of the Bondy Blog from 2009 to 2011 and a former senior reporter at Time and L'Hebdo, he is the author of Livre des indésirés - A history of Arabs in France (Editions du Cerf, 2019). Today, he writes for the Swiss media outlet Watson and contributes to the French magazines Marianne and L'Express.
RTS responded to this letter on January 14 on the Facebook group «Le petit journal des médias suisses»:
Hello Antoine Menusier,
Ugo Palheta's comments are his alone, as is your interpretation of them. In this case, his response was generally concerned with the instrumentalization of Islam by the extreme right, which he claims to discern in the growing Islamophobia in Europe. The question of France's military interventions in Africa, which is the central subject of your message, was only briefly mentioned in Mr. Palheta's reply.
The issue you raise - which is just as interesting - concerns the instrumentalization of Islam by Islamist and extremist groups. It deserves just as much attention, as you rightly point out. However, in order to respect the angle chosen for this discussion and to ensure clarity in view of its relatively short format, the editorial team considers it preferable to distinguish these different issues and deal with them separately.
Kind regards,
Marc Allgöwer, Deputy Editor-in-Chief RTS TV
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