Macron of France calls for regulation of social media to curb “threat to democracy”

The French leader made a complaint against technology companies, without naming them, for giving former President Donald Trump a platform to “spread hatred” for years before taking action. Twitter Inc.

banned Mr. Trump’s personal account after the January 6 Capitol riot, and cited the risk of inciting violence. Facebook Inc.

announced a temporary suspension of Mr. Trump after the riot before extending that action indefinitely.

“All those who allowed President Trump to succeed waited until they were totally sure he had no power left to wrap himself up in dignity and now tell him‘ We take his whistle ’,” Macron said. “Why didn’t they close their accounts before all this happened?”

Macron said governments had delegated too much authority to technology companies expecting them to act as administrators of Western democracy. “This is a problem for real international regulation,” Macron said.

The French leader made his statements at his first meeting with the international media since he contracted the coronavirus in late December. Mr. Macron was sitting in a golden ballroom in the center of a table that stretched the length of the room, with a black turtleneck.

An old mechanical clock struck as Mr. Macron became philosophical about how Western democracies under the influence of social media were experiencing “a form of anthropological mutation.”

Mr Macron said it was shocking to see images of an extremist dressed in a far-right suit inside the Capitol “at the heart of power”.

“But the spread of this image has the effect of replication, like the virus,” Macron said, referring to the pathogen that Covid-19 causes.

Macron said France was suffering from similar disorders, from the yellow vest protest movement to its years-long struggle with Islamist terrorism. In October, a high school teacher was beheaded after class by an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen descent. The assailant went to school after watching a video on social media of a Muslim father making a fight against the teacher to show the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

In recent months, the Macron government has shut down mosques and other associations suspected of practicing “Islamist separatism,” which Macron sees as a campaign backed by religious extremists to undermine the institutions of the French republic. Opponents of the crackdown have accused Mr Macron of stigmatizing the French Muslim community, which is one of the largest in Europe.

Macron said he was acting in defense of France’s citizenship model. What makes a person French, he said, is the acceptance of reason, freedom, and other eighteenth-century values ​​of the Enlightenment.

Islamist ideologues seek to create a wedge between members of the French Muslim community and the French state, Macron said, adding that the French sometimes compromise their Republican values ​​because of the sensitivity of religious beliefs.

“We have a real crisis in France’s integration model,” Macron said. “Political correctness has today jeopardized the citizen’s primacy over the believer.”

Macron also considered tensions in the Middle East and said France could play a role in involving regional powers such as Israel and Saudi Arabia to support any push to reactivate the 2015 international agreement to curb Iranian nuclear program. In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the deal, while holding back its implementation.

Macron said time was shortening, because Iran will have to hold presidential elections in June. “There’s a window of opportunity here in the election. I think we need to take advantage of that.”

Write to Stacy Meichtry at [email protected] and Noemie Bisserbe at [email protected]