FRANCE: The managing editor of France Soir, the French newspaper which published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Wednesday, has been sacked by the newspaper's owner.
Raymond Lakah, a Roman Catholic with French and Egyptian nationality, said he fired Jacques Lefranc as "a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual". "We express our regrets to the Muslim community and all people who were shocked by the publication" of the cartoons, he said after a French Muslim group threatened to sue France Soir.
Mr Lefranc called the decision "questionable in both reasoning and method" and said he "reserved the option to contest it".
Mr Lakah's apology contrasted sharply with the combative tone of his newspaper, which devoted its front page to the cartoon crisis for a second day, with the title "Help, Voltaire: They've gone crazy!" above a photograph of Muslims burning a Danish flag. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten was the first to publish the drawings last September.
"The question posed is the following: are all those who are not Muslims required to conform to the ban (on portraying God or the Prophet)?" asked France Soir's editorial. The paper is in receivership and does not have money to continue publishing. It increased its print-run by 25 per cent in the past two days.
Others were more cautious. "Within the principle of freedom, the spirit of tolerance, of respect for beliefs and religions, must be exercised," the foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in Turkey yesterday.
Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy was the only politician to defend France Soir. "There's no reason why the Catholic religion accepts criticism, and Islam should not," he said.
Le Monde gave its front page top to a drawing by Plantu: the cartoonist's pencil writes the words "I must not draw Muhammad" until they form an outline of the Prophet's face.
After a France 2 television crew in Jerusalem received a death-threat, the station asked TV5 to cancel all reports on the crisis. Instead, TV5 blurred the cartoons in news reports.
The Danish ambassador to Paris yesterday visited Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French Council of the Muslim Religion. Mr Boubakeur called the publication "a provocation towards the five million Muslims who live in France". French Jewish and Catholic leaders have also criticised the publication of the cartoons.