https://www.valeursactuelles.com/so...ualifie-dislamophobe-temoigne-un-journaliste/
Broadcast at the end of January on M6, a report by the program Zone prohibited devoted to the Islamism present in Roubaix, in the North – “Faced with the danger of radical Islam, the responses of the State” – caused a big controversy. Journalist Ophélie Meunier and lawyer Amine Elbahi were threatened and placed under police protection. On the occasion of a lengthy interview granted to Marianne and published on Thursday, February 3, the reporter for La Voix du Nord Bruno Renoul, who appears in this documentary and works in Roubaix, mentioned the difficulties inherent in dealing with this question in his job. “Investigating political Islam quickly comes down to being called Islamophobic in public,” he laments.
“Roubaix is a city of which Islam is a part”
According to Bruno Renoul, what is the issue of Islamism in Roubaix today? “When you are a journalist [there], it is an inevitably essential dimension,” assures the reporter in the columns of the weekly magazine. “Islam necessarily becomes an object of investigation, in the same way as if I worked in a city with a powerful automobile industry, I should have been interested in the latter,” he continues then, to support his reasoning.
And Bruno Renoul then added to the same media: “Roubaix is a city of which Islam is a part.” But broaching the subject is not always easy. “I developed a sensitivity on the issue, which led me to speak about it regularly, but I have many colleagues who do not want to find themselves insulted or threatened, he explains shortly after. The accusation of Islamophobia is not necessarily easy to swallow…”
“It bruises”
This accusation of Islamophobia is made by several people. For example, local association activists, certain elected officials, or even people who react on social networks, Bruno Renoul told Marianne. “It is all the more difficult […] since we have seen, with the Samuel Paty affair, that this type of accusation can have very serious consequences,” he explains. There was a time when he was automatically accused if he raised this issue in one of his articles. “It hurts to be accused of being driven by a racist attitude and hatred towards others,” he lamented to journalists.
“We think back to the context of Charlie Hebdo”
Initially very affected by this accusation, Bruno Renoul confided to the news site that he gradually got used to it. For him, this is “too easy a charge to be taken seriously,” since it amounts to “treating the other as racist to close the debate.” But sometimes it doesn’t end there. “I also received threats – a message promising to ‘kalacher’ me in the street in Roubaix, for example”, observes the reporter. And to conclude, not without bitterness: “You end up getting used to it, to tell yourself that these are just words. And then we think back to the context of Charlie Hebdo, remembering that the passage to the act exists.”
Broadcast at the end of January on M6, a report by the program Zone prohibited devoted to the Islamism present in Roubaix, in the North – “Faced with the danger of radical Islam, the responses of the State” – caused a big controversy. Journalist Ophélie Meunier and lawyer Amine Elbahi were threatened and placed under police protection. On the occasion of a lengthy interview granted to Marianne and published on Thursday, February 3, the reporter for La Voix du Nord Bruno Renoul, who appears in this documentary and works in Roubaix, mentioned the difficulties inherent in dealing with this question in his job. “Investigating political Islam quickly comes down to being called Islamophobic in public,” he laments.
“Roubaix is a city of which Islam is a part”
According to Bruno Renoul, what is the issue of Islamism in Roubaix today? “When you are a journalist [there], it is an inevitably essential dimension,” assures the reporter in the columns of the weekly magazine. “Islam necessarily becomes an object of investigation, in the same way as if I worked in a city with a powerful automobile industry, I should have been interested in the latter,” he continues then, to support his reasoning.
And Bruno Renoul then added to the same media: “Roubaix is a city of which Islam is a part.” But broaching the subject is not always easy. “I developed a sensitivity on the issue, which led me to speak about it regularly, but I have many colleagues who do not want to find themselves insulted or threatened, he explains shortly after. The accusation of Islamophobia is not necessarily easy to swallow…”
“It bruises”
This accusation of Islamophobia is made by several people. For example, local association activists, certain elected officials, or even people who react on social networks, Bruno Renoul told Marianne. “It is all the more difficult […] since we have seen, with the Samuel Paty affair, that this type of accusation can have very serious consequences,” he explains. There was a time when he was automatically accused if he raised this issue in one of his articles. “It hurts to be accused of being driven by a racist attitude and hatred towards others,” he lamented to journalists.
“We think back to the context of Charlie Hebdo”
Initially very affected by this accusation, Bruno Renoul confided to the news site that he gradually got used to it. For him, this is “too easy a charge to be taken seriously,” since it amounts to “treating the other as racist to close the debate.” But sometimes it doesn’t end there. “I also received threats – a message promising to ‘kalacher’ me in the street in Roubaix, for example”, observes the reporter. And to conclude, not without bitterness: “You end up getting used to it, to tell yourself that these are just words. And then we think back to the context of Charlie Hebdo, remembering that the passage to the act exists.”
