Why Did Arab Feminists Turn Against Anti-Macron Protesters?

By Sally Shakkour

Several female activists have expressed their anger against anti-Macron protesters after they turned the French president’s photos into a female version of him using Photoshop, as a way of denouncing his Islamophobic remarks following the death of history teacher Samuel Paty.

Activists revealed that comparing Macron with women is in a fact an insult to all females and in particular to Muslims because Islam has given women an important role.

Twitter account, named Yemeni Feminist Voice, shared a tweet revealing disagreement of turning Macron’s photos into women, saying “When Muslims rushed to defend Prophet Muhammad, they did not hesitate to convert pictures of Macron into a woman. With this, Islam and Muslims suffer crises.”

The tweet got mixed reactions as some have agreed that turning Macron into a woman is disgraceful to women while others denied it saying; it is an insult whenever you change the gender of any person and it is not related to women in specific.

Translation: “They think it is humiliating if they turned Macron into a woman, they’re funny.”

Translation: “They think by doing this they defended the Prophet and insulted Macron, and its disturbing that most of the people really think that they regained their honor after Macron’s woman photos and they are satisfied.”

Translation: “They are saying that Islam has honored women and now they are mocking Macron by turning his photo into a woman figure, they have schizophrenia”

Weeks ago, the French history teacher Samuel Paty was murdered on October 16 after he displayed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on free speech by an 18-year-old radical of Chechen origin.

Moreover, President Emmanuel Macron defended the teacher and slammed the incident saying that Islam was in crisis all over the world.

Following his comments viral social media hashtags emerged such as "#BoycottFrance, #boycottFrenchProducts, #boycott_French_products and #ProphetMuhammad”, calling for the boycott of all French products.

On the other hand, French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes Von Der Muhll called on Arab countries not to boycott French products in a statement “These calls for boycotts and attacks on our country pushed by a radical minority are baseless and must be stopped immediately.”