Important interview with Macron on Al Jazeera. There's still much misrepresentation (wilful or not) of laïcité. It's not state atheism, nor the persecution of religion, but the protection of the right to believe, or not to believe, + the separation of religion from public affairs

Here Macron is explaining this. “Our country has no problem with any religion. Each is can exercise it freely here. No stigmatisation” https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1322574020550774784

French laïcité was the product of a (sometimes bloody) anti-clerical struggle with the Catholic church. It resulted in the 1905 law to entrench this French version of secularism. The point was to protect the state and public education from the power of any religion, not Islam

@Chassnews wrote an interesting piece a few years back about France’s war in 1905 against the black ankle-length Catholic soutane. The combat against certain forms of religious expression in public has a particular French historic context https://www.ft.com/content/05c420b8-75a5-11e6-b60a-de4532d5ea35

Defending the right to publish caricatures doesn’t mean approving of them. Here is Macron saying “No, these caricatures are not the view of the French government. I can understand that they shock people. But France defends the right of free expression.” https://twitter.com/john_lichfield/status/1322592877193662465