Charlie Hebdo's controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad were projected onto the walls of regional hotels in Toulouse and Montpellier, France.
President of the Occitanie region in France Carole Delga announced the plan yesterday in a lengthy Twitter thread. The projections would be shown during the national tribute to Samuel Paty, the Parisian school teacher who was beheaded by Islamists after showing the Hebdo caricatures to his class.
Delga defended her decision to endorse the characters' projection, calling it a "strong act" that displayed the values of the Republic.
“Beyond this symbolic action," said Delga, "it is my desire to express a message to our fellow citizens: in our Republic, there can be no arrangement with secularism, freedom of expression and freedom of conscience which are at the heart of our republican model. There must be no weakness in the face of the enemies of democracy, in the face of those who reveal religion to transform it into a weapon of war, in the face of those who unite, by calculation or renouncement, with those who have the political objective to destroy the Republic, ” Carole Delga tweeted in French.
Delga also announced that "security, prevention and education" measures around high schools would be increased, citing the 2012 Toulouse attacks by an Islamist who killed a Rabbi and three Jewish children.
“Eight years after the attack in Toulouse, a terrorist act struck the School for the 2nd time: targeted because it teaches the very foundations of citizenship, this desire to form society despite our differences, this universal value which makes diversity is richness, ” said Delga.
Depictions of other religious figures, such as Jesus Christ, were also depicted via projector onto the walls of l'Hotel de Region in Toulouse, France.
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