French Foreign and European Affairs Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has warned here about \"unreasoned\" fear of Islam and about confusing moderate Muslims with radical or fundamentalist parties.
Speaking after polls here showed significant levels of fear of Islam\'s influence in France and Germany, Alliot-Marie recalled that France \"had avoided the trap set by Al-Qaeda\" in September 2001 when there was a danger of a backlash against Muslims because of the work of a handful of terrorists.
\"I believe that one is not afraid of the person one knows, this more concern the Muslims in general. One is not afraid of one\'s neighbour across the hall,\" the French Minister said in an interview with \"Europe 1\" radio Tuesday.
\"The trap set by Al-Qaeda was to push us towards a general confrontation, towards a war between the Muslim and Western worlds. We must watch out for anything that goes in that direction,\" she said.
\"We must not confuse Islam and terrorism. And we must not confuse moderate Islam with fundamentalist Islam and I think that the creation by President (Nicolas) Sarkozy of the French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM), with which I worked when I was Minister for Faiths and for the Interior, was a great success,\" the Foreign Minister affirmed.
\"This allows for the establishment of a dialogue and prevents the importing on to our territory the conflicts that have no place here.\"
She said that two years ago, for example, she worked hard to prevent \"what was happening between Israel and Palestine from degenerating and coming (to France) and got representatives of the Jewish, Muslim and Catholic communities around the same table.\"
\"That was a success,\" Alliot-Marie pointed out. The French Minister explained the increasing fears of other communities by the need for reassurance in a globalizing world.
The poll published Tuesday by French daily \"Le Monde\" indicated that 40 per cent of French and German people felt their \"national identity\" was threatened by Islam.
People \"need to be reassured on the destiny they share and the willingness to share this destiny and to live together,\" she remarked. This implies agreeing on a certain number of values \"that need to be constantly reaffirmed.\"
source : http://abna.ir/
