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Agence France-Presse

The French embassy in Pakistan on Thursday advised all French nationals and companies to temporarily leave the country, after violent anti-France protests paralysed large parts of the country this week.
“Due to the serious threats to French interests in Pakistan, French nationals and French companies are advised to temporarily leave the country,” the embassy said in an email to French citizens.
“The departures will be carried out by existing commercial airlines.”
Anti-French sentiment has been simmering for months in Pakistan since the government of President Emmanuel Macron expressed support for a satirical magazine’s right to republish cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed – deemed blasphemous by many Muslims.
Pakistan to ban extremist party behind anti-France protests
On Wednesday, the Pakistani government moved to ban an extremist political party whose leader had called for the expulsion of the French ambassador.
Saad Rizvi, leader of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), was detained hours after making his demands, bringing thousands of his supporters to the streets in cities across Pakistan. Two police officers died in the clashes, during which water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets were used to hold back crowds.
This week extra security personnel have been deployed to the French embassy, which is inside a guarded diplomatic enclave closed off to the public, and around four shipping containers placed on its outer wall.
Ludo Van Vooren, a French citizen living in Islamabad, said he was assessing the advice.
“We are a little shocked and reflecting on what to do,” he said. “Following the incidents of the last few months, we haven’t been panicking but we are very vigilant. Now we are trying to work out if things have changed.”


Last year around 445 French citizens and more than 30 French companies were registered in Pakistan, according to a French government website.
The TLP is notorious for holding days-long, violent road protests over blasphemy issues, causing major disruption to the country.
Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in conservative Pakistan, where laws allow for the death penalty to be used on anyone deemed to have insulted Islam or Islamic figures.
Successive governments have a long history of avoiding confrontation with hardline Islamist groups, fearing any crackdown on religious parties could spark wider violence.
Pakistan police use tear gas and water cannon on anti-France protesters
“We are in favour of protecting the Prophet’s honour, but the demand which they are seeking could have portrayed Pakistan as a radical nation worldwide,” Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told a news conference on Wednesday.
On Twitter, the hashtag “#FranceLeavePakistan” was trending with more than 55,000 tweets as of Thursday afternoon.
Anger erupted in Autumn last year when the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Macron’s subsequent defence of free speech triggered anger across the Muslim world, with tens of thousands in Pakistan, neighbouring Iran and other Muslim countries flooding the streets and organising anti-French boycotts.

TLP supporters brought the capital Islamabad to a standstill.
At the time, Prime Minister Imran Khan, a populist leader who has been known to play to Pakistan’s hardline religious base, blasted Charlie Hebdo for republishing the cartoons, saying “wilful provocations” should be “universally outlawed”.
He accused the French president of attacking the Muslim faith and urged Islamic countries to work together to counter what he called growing repression in Europe.
Weeks later, a Pakistani man attacked the former offices of the magazine in Paris, wounding two people.


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Pakistan

France advises citizens to leave Pakistan as protests over cartoons continue

Police officers guard a road blocked with shipping containers, near the French consulate in Karachi, as France advised its nationals and companies to temporarily leave the country. Photo: AP

Supporters of Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan chant slogans during a protest against the arrest of their party leader, Saad Rizvi. Photo: AP

Muslims boycott French products as rage grows over Prophet Mohammed cartoons

Pictures depicting French President Emmanuel Macron are set on fire during a protest in Baghdad. Photo: dpa

26 October 2020, Iraq, Baghdad: A demonstrator holds a picture of French President Emmanuel Macron, stamped with a shoe print, during a protest outside the French embassy in Baghdad against Macron's comments on Islam's prophet Muhammad cartoons. Photo: Ameer Al Mohammedaw/dpa

epa08774825 French food products removed from supermarket shelves to protest against French cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in Kuwait city, Kuwait, 26 October 2020. EPA-EFE/Noufal Ibrahim

epa08775334 A worker puts a placard on a shelf reading in Arabic 'Boycott French products' after French products were removed from supermarket shelves to protest against French cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad at a supermarket in Sana’a, Yemen, 26 October 2020. Calls for boycotting French products spread in several countries across the Middle East in response to French President Emmanuel Macron's comments that his country would not give up publishing Prophet Muhammad’s cartoons following the recent beheading of a teacher in France after he had shown such cartoons in class. EPA-EFE/YAHYA ARHAB

Signs in Arabic calling customers to boycott French products are placed on shelves at a supermarket in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on October 26, 2020. - Calls to boycott French goods are growing in the Arab world and beyond, after President Emmanuel Macron criticised Islamists and vowed not to "give up cartoons" depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Macron's comments came in response to the beheading of a teacher, Samuel Paty, outside his school in a suburb outside Paris earlier this month, after he had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a class he was leading on free speech. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP)

Traders burn a French national flag during a protest following French President Emmanuel Macron's comments over the Prophet Mohammed caricatures, in Peshawar on October 26, 2020. - Pakistan summoned France's ambassador on October 26 to complain about a "systematic Islamophobic campaign" in the European nation after French President Emmanuel Macron criticised Islamists and defended the publication of religious cartoons. (Photo by Abdul MAJEED / AFP)

Pakistan police use tear gas and water cannon on thousands of anti-France protesters

Police use tear gas to disperse supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) during a protest in Lahore, Pakistan on Monday. Photo: AFP

Supporters of Islamic political party Tehrik Labaik Pakistan, throw stones towards the police after their party chief Saad Hussain Rizvi was detained by security forces in Lahore, Pakistan. Photo: EPA-EFE

Thousands of Muslims, from Pakistan to Lebanon, clash with police in protests against France’s ‘anti-Islam’ stance

A protester chants slogans during a protest against French President Macron near the residence of the French ambassador in Beirut, Lebanon on Friday. Photo: AP Photo

Muslim men walk past a defaced poster of French President Emmanuel Macron during a protest in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia on Friday. Photo: AP Photo

Do Pakistan’s anti-France protests signal rise of Islamist mob rule?

Supporters of Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan block a main highway during an anti-France rally in Islamabad on Monday. Photo: AP

Activists of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, take part in an anti-France protest rally in Karachi on November 7, 2020. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)

Indonesian Muslim group calls for calm amid Islamic world’s fury at France’s Macron

A Palestinian in East Jerusalam erects a mural with the slogan “Anyone but the Prophet” and the portrait of French President Emmanuel Macron with boot prints and placed on the body of a dog. Photo: AFP

A picture shows an empty shelve that used to display French products, with a note that reads "we removed all products made in France", at a supermarket in Kuwait City on October 28, 2020, as part of a boycott in protest of cartoons depicting Islam's Prophet Mohamed published in the French media. (Photo by YASSER AL-ZAYYAT / AFP)

Yahya Staquf, the secretary general of Indonesia's Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organisation. Photo: Handout

A child holds a photograph of France's President Emmanuel Macron, stamped with a shoe mark, during a protest against France in Istanbul, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday challenged the United States to impose sanctions against his country while also launching a second attack on French President Emmanuel Macron. Speaking a day after he suggested Macron needed mental health treatment because of his attitude to Islam and Muslims, which prompted France to recall its ambassador to Ankara, Erdogan took aim at foreign critics. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

French President Emmanuel Macron looks on as he waits for the arrival of Estonia's Prime Minister before their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on October 28, 2020. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

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Anti-French sentiment has been simmering since Emmanuel Macron expressed support for Charlie Hebdo’s right to republish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed
The embassy said there were ‘serious threats’ to French interests in Pakistan



Anti-French sentiment has been simmering since Emmanuel Macron expressed support for Charlie Hebdo’s right to republish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.


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