Free Speech in France

Any insult targeted at a French mayor will now be considered an offence that carries a maximum penalty of community service or a 7,500 euro fine.

Frances minister of 'justice' Eric Dupond-Moretti announced the decision claiming that an insult to a mayor is an insult to France. He promised that from now on there will be a systematic, immediate and proportionate answer to any aggression.

French President Emmanuel Macron has added his voice to the thousands who have spoken out in defence of a schoolgirl forced into hiding after she criticised Islam.

According to the Guardian Macron, in defending the girl identified only as Mila, insisted that blasphemy:

Is no crime. The law is clear: we have the right to blaspheme, to criticise, to caricature religions ...what is outlawed is to incite hatred and attack dignity.

In this debate we have lost sight of the fact that Mila is an adolescent. We owe her protection at school, in her daily life, in her movements.

The President added that in finding a new school for Mila, the state has fulfilled its responsibilities and that children needed to be better protected against:

New forms of hatred and harassment online that can be destructive.

And as an example of how nasty things have become in France, Abdallah Zekri, general delegate of the French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM), told French radio:

This girl knows exactly what she has done ... they who sow, reap.