Hollande reassures Muslims, demands respect for French values
President Francois Hollande assured Muslims in France and abroad on Thursday that his country respected them and their religion but would not compromise its commitment to freedom and democracy.
Speaking a week after three days of Islamist militant violence that killed 17 people in Paris, he told a meeting at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris that Muslims were "the first victims of fanaticism, fundamentalism and intolerance".
His speech struck a careful balance between France's commitment to protect its five-million-strong Muslim minority, Europe's largest, and to uphold the principle of free speech even for caricatures that Muslims find offensive.
French Muslims have reported dozens of attacks on mosques since Islamist gunmen targeted satirical journal Charlie Hebdo last week. Authorities in several Middle Eastern countries have denounced the newspaper's decision to print more cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in its first post-attack edition on Wednesday.
