Seems like we have a strong candidate for silliest tweet of 2020 by a president not named Trump

Is it helpful for the president of France to troll French Muslims? Probably not. But I'm not sure there's another way to read his statement that "Laïcité never killed anyone." It seems clear he's drawing a contrast between laïcité and a particular religion

It should be possible to do two things—to condemn the horrific attacks in France this past week in the strongest possible terms, while also viewing the French government's response as problematic and counterproductive

The French government is increasingly stigmatizing an entire group because of the actions of individual extremists. There should be no assumption of collective guilt. The actions of terrorists should not be used to delegitimatize French Muslims. But that's what's happening

The new Macron interview is worrying, to put it mildly. Watch it and judge for yourself. He's conflating conservative and traditionalist interpretations of Islam with terrorism and extremism. This is precisely what you *don't* do after a terrorist attack

As @MacaesBruno correctly points out: "A family of traditionalist Muslims will feel itself the target" of Macron's comments https://twitter.com/MacaesBruno/status/1322684762339840001

If you're a French Muslim woman who simply wears the headscarf, then you are perceived by your own president as undermining the "values" of the Republic and violating gender equality. That has nothing to do with terrorism. This is about attacking individual religious practice

Terrorism generally aims to provoke the target population to do things they otherwise wouldn't. Terrorists want people to overreact. So there should be extra care to not fall into the trap. Don't overreact. And at least make a good faith effort to not stigmatize ordinary Muslims