Muslim protesters defile ‘Louis Vuitton’ bags in Indonesia as anger at France’s Macron grows
- Protests flare in several cities in world’s biggest Muslim nation as thousands attend a demonstration near the French Embassy in Jakarta
- Leader of the Islamic Defenders Front hails killer of French teacher “a hero”
Indonesian Muslim group calls for calm amid Islamic world’s fury at Macron
At one protest near the French Embassy in downtown Jakarta, more than 2,000 people turned out, though they were unable to get near the embassy, which was heavily guarded and surrounded by barbed wire.
During the protest, some women stomped on a bag featuring the Louis Vuitton logo. “Let’s stomp on this, let’s stomp it,” said one protester as she urged others to join her, reported CNN Indonesia.
“This is our act of rejection against French products,” the woman said.
It was unclear whether the women were stomping on genuine Louis Vuitton bags, or whether they were fake.
“The internet said that teenager is a terrorist. I don’t care about what they said, but my brothers, we are Muslim, that teenager is a hero. God is great, that is true,” he said, as quoted by the local news website Detik.
He asked all Indonesian Muslims to boycott French products, following the steps of various Muslim countries.
“Turkey has boycotted them. How about if we boycotted them too? Do you all agree?”
“Agree!” the crowd replied.
Protests also broke out in the cities of Bandung and Surabaya, where protesters stepped on posters of Macron’s face, as well as on French flags.
An image circulated on WhatsApp called for boycotts of French brands including Cartier, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Danone, Evian, and Novotel.
Some celebrities have also backed the calls, including the television personality Arie Untung, who in recent years has become the face of the country’s “Hijrah” movement in which young, urban Muslims embrace pious lifestyles.
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On an Instagram post on October 28, Arie showed bags bearing the labels of Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton thrown on his floor. He told his 2.5 million followers that the bags did “not deserve to be in the closet of an owner who really loves the Prophet”.
“We will never use these things again, however expensive their prices are,” he said.
Still, not all Indonesians appear keen to give up luxury French brands. A Twitter user named Anastasia said: “To all the celebs who threw away, or stomped on, their Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, Dior, Givenchy bags … please just give them to me, I am ready to store them.”
On Saturday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo condemned the killing of Paty and a subsequent attack in which three people were killed at a church in Nice, also described by Macron as an “Islamist terrorist attack”. However, Widodo also criticised remarks by Macron that were deemed offensive toward Islam.
Widodo said freedom of expression that tarnished the honour, sanctity and sacredness of religious values and symbols could not be justified and must be stopped.
“President Emmanuel Macron made it clear that there was no intention at all to generalise, and clearly distinguished between the majority of French Muslims and the militant, separatist minority that is hostile to the values of the French Republic,” the embassy said.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
