100% agree. This is a fundamental issue of sovereignty, not an FoE issue. https://twitter.com/arisroussinos/status/1317494902301786112

This point is worth elaborating. It is wrong to frame this issue as some debate about what are the responsibilities and limits of free speech. Reasonable people can differ on that question. But this issue is NOT about that.

The nation-state of France has been created to advance the interests of the French people- that is the nation. A state has a legitimate *monopoly* of power - that is to create laws, and enforce them, with violent force if required.

Any source of law or de facto imposition of law by any other entity is a challenge to such sovereignty. You cannot allow a blasphemy law to be de facto enacted and enforced in the French society at large. That means the French state no longer has a monopoly

Especially if the source of such law lies outside of anything to do with French culture, norms and history. Macron has hence correctly identified the fight as being with *Islamism*, not just Islamic extremism.

Islamism would hold that Islam is a legitimate source of political action- that laws, and hence the state should be shaped by Islam. That simply cannot be accepted as legitimate in modern non-Islamic nation-states without an erosion of sovereignty.

In modern nation-states, Islam is accepted as a religion. But NOT as a source of law, and a legitimate source of political action.

As an aside, this is why 370 to some extent and UCC even more so are also important. Not only because the laws themselves were bad. But because in principle we should not limit the sovereignty of the Indian state and legitimise the notion that political power lies outside.

370 still in theory one could say was just asymmetric federalism (which is legit even in modern nation states) and it is not like it came from some other source. But the fact is it legitimised the notion that Kashmiri identity limits the sovereignty of the Indian state AND...

...the subtext was that was because of a Muslim majority. Similarly the underlying philosophy of UCC - that the Indian state lacks or limits sovereignty over personal laws (or family laws) of Muslims and Christians but does have that power over the Dharmic faiths. ...

And that underlying philosophy is what should be combated. Islamism doesn’t have legitimacy. Islam is a religion that should be freely practiced by people without any hindrance. But it is NOT a legitimate source of law and law enforcement

And any concession that it is only erodes the sovereignty of the state, and provides a challenge, with another basis of political identity going all the way to sovereignty - that is the power to adopt and enforce your own laws. Such a “state within a state” is not acceptable.

Hence let’s not make these debates about FoE or even “secularism” (in the case of UCC). This is about ensuring that sovereignty is maintained, that the state is the only legitimate political actor with monopoly power of law making and enforcement (end).