Boycotts of French goods launched in Kuwait, Qatar over prophet cartoons
Following controversial comments made by France's president, calls are growing in Muslim countries for boycotts of French goods.
Supermarkets in Kuwait, Qatar and elsewhere in the Muslim world are pulling French products off their shelves to protest recent comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron over controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
Kuwait's nongovernmental Union of Consumer Co-operative Societies has reportedly yanked a number of items made in France. Reuters visited several co-ops Sunday and found the shelves cleared of French beauty and hair products as well as other French goods.
Union head Fahd Al-Kishti told the news agency the move was “taken independently of the Kuwait government” and was prompted by “repeated insults” to the Prophet Muhammad.
Earlier this month, an 18-year-old Chechen refugee beheaded a schoolteacher near Paris who had shown his classroom the cartoons of the prophet during a lesson on freedom of expression. Muslims consider depictions of the founder of Islam to be blasphemous.
