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Paris:
The proper to mock and caricature, even faith, is a vital a part of being French, President Emmanuel Macron mentioned at a naturalisation ceremony on Friday, days after the beginning of a trial of the accused accomplices in an assault by Islamist gunmen on the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo in 2015.
In the Paris Pantheon, a mausoleum to France’s heroes, Macron handed 5 new residents their French papers in a solemn ceremony to mark the 150th anniversary of the Third Republic.
“At the start of the trial of the attacks of January 2015, I say that to be French is to defend the right to laugh, jest, mock and caricature, of which Voltaire maintained that it is the source of all other rights,” Macron mentioned.
More than a dozen defendants went on trial this week for his or her position within the killing spree within the Paris workplaces of Charlie Hebdo, the place 12 folks died. This week, the journal republished the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that had sparked the ire of Islamist militants.
Welcoming 5 new residents from Britain, Algeria, Cameroun, Peru and Lebanon, Macron mentioned immigrants have lengthy been a power for good in France, and famous that the Third Republic was proclaimed from Paris metropolis corridor by the son of an Italian immigrant, Leon Gambetta, on Sept. 4, 1870.
“He was, like you, a son of immigrants, French of mixed blood. It was he who resuscitated the republic, this reign of freedom,” Macron mentioned.
Macron mentioned many different immigrants have formed French historical past, together with Polish-born scientist Marie Curie, American-born singer Josephine Baker, Tunisian-born feminist Gisele Alimi, and Felix Eboue, France’s first Black colonial governor and first Black man to have his ashes positioned within the Pantheon.
“Now it is your turn to write your chapter in the book of the republic,” he mentioned.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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