Macron seeks to calm tensions with Muslims

President Emmanuel Macron sought to calm flaring tensions with Muslims around the world on Saturday, telling an Arab TV channel he understood that derogatory cartoons to Muslims could be shocking while lashing out at "lies" that the French state was behind them. 

France is on edge after the republication in early September of the cartoons by the Charlie Hebdo weekly, which was followed by an attack outside its former offices, the beheading of a teacher and an attack on a church in Nice Thursday that left three dead.

The country was further shaken by a new incident on Saturday, when an attacker armed with a sawn-off shotgun shot an Orthodox priest in Lyon, a police source said. The priest was taken to hospital in a serious condition, sources said. A suspect was arrested later Saturday, Lyon's public prosecutor said, with the motive of the attack remaining unclear.

Macron sparked protests across the Muslim world after the murder earlier this month of teacher Samuel Paty -- who had shown his class one of those cartoons -- by saying France would never renounce its laws permitting blasphemous caricatures.

But in an apparent bid to reach out to Muslims, Macron gave a long interview setting out his vision to Qatar-based TV channel Al-Jazeera, seeking to strike a softer tone.

"I can understand that people could be shocked by the caricatures, but I will never accept that violence can be justified," he said. "I understand the feelings that this arouses, I respect them." He added: "I will always defend in my country the freedom to speak, to write, to think, to draw."

He also denounced calls for a boycott of French goods as "unworthy" and "unacceptable".