Ivan Rioufol is a French journalist and specialist in maritime and aviation law. He is a conservative Catholic, and since 1985 has worked for the newspaper Le Figaro.
Marwan Muhammad is an Islamic activist of Egyptian and Algerian origin. He is the former executive director of the CCIF (Collectif contre l’islamophobie en France, Collective Against Islamophobia in France).
In the following excerpt from a talk show on French TV, Messrs. Rioufol and Muhammad go head-to-head about last month’s March Against Islamophobia and related matters. Many thanks to Ava Lon for undertaking the gargantuan task of untangling these simultaneous threads of invective and then translating them, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
| 00:20 | Forbidden | |
| 00:24 | to forbid [slogan from May 1968 leftist student protests in France] | |
| 00:28 | Forbidden | |
| 00:33 | Forbidden to forbid | |
| 00:37 | Welcome to the stage of Forbidden to Forbid. | |
| 00:41 | The March Against Islamophobia on November 10th has been accused of all evils. | |
| 00:45 | We have therefore decided to invite two men who were there in order to have a debate about it: | |
| 00:49 | Marwan Muhammad and Ivan Rioufol. I thank both of you for agreeing to this debate. | |
| 00:53 | Marwan Muhammad you are statistician, an algorithm creator, | |
| 00:57 | co-founder of the platform: The Muslims. You are the author | |
| 01:01 | of the book “We Are The Nation: Why It’s Necessary to Fight Islamophobia”, which was published | |
| 01:05 | by Découverte. You have been the spokesperson and then the executive director of CCIF, | |
| 01:09 | the Collective Against Islamophobia in France. You stepped down in October 2017, | |
| 01:13 | but you remained a member; the CCIF | |
| 01:18 | is one of the organizers of the March Against Islamophobia | |
| 01:22 | on November 10, the CCIF, | |
| 01:26 | yes, I’ll manage to pronounce it, the CCIF is regularly accused | |
| 01:30 | of creeping Islamism by its adversaries. You have incidentally been accused of screaming | |
| 01:34 | “Allahu Akhbar” to the protesters that day, during the march. | |
| 01:38 | We will go back to it. How do you judge the results of this March Against Islamophobia? | |
| 01:42 | Good results. It’s a march that is a historic moment, where tens | |
| 01:47 | of thousands of people took to the streets to say “Stop Islamophobia!”, denouncing | |
| 01:51 | a current form of racism which targets our Muslim co-citizens for | |
| 01:55 | the reason of their belonging — true or supposed — to the Muslim religion. It was | |
| 01:58 | the most important anti-racist rally since the ’80s, and it was also | |
| 02:03 | a moment of gathering where people of all origins, of all the political opinions, | |
| 02:07 | of all religions, descended on the streets together in a moment of fraternity, | |
| 02:11 | in a moment of denunciation, which says that in 2019 it’s high time, | |
| 02:15 | at the end of the day, to take into account this form of current racism, which doesn’t aim | |
| 02:19 | at the criticism of a religion — unlike what some would like to tell you — which doesn’t aim | |
| 02:22 | to establish a blasphemy crime, but to take into account the fact that citizens today are being | |
| 02:28 | targeted, discriminated against, sometimes attacked because of their religious choices, and that | |
| 02:32 | it’s the appraisal of the results which is positive, an appraisal which opens a way or work, | |
| 02:36 | because a rally is just a stage, it’s just a symbolic action, which has to open | |
| 02:40 | a stage and a work path in order to fight against all the discriminations, against all the | |
| 02:44 | kinds of violence, without ranking them in priority order and in an egalitarian process. That is | |
| 02:48 | the balance sheet. —Nonetheless — without wanting to rank it — you said that it was | |
| 02:51 | the largest anti-racist rally since the ’80s. —It depends on the numbers. | |
| 02:54 | There have been others. —There have been sequences, gatherings, moments. | |
| 02:58 | I’m not ranking them in order of priority, depending on the number of people | |
| 03:01 | who are on the street… —We agree. —…but I’m saying that in a period when | |
| 03:05 | all day long the Muslim citizens are construed sometimes as a problem | |
| 03:09 | by polemicists, by politicians and political icons, being able to say | |
| 03:13 | and express — finally! — the reality of this phenomenon, and regardless of the media steamroller | |
| 03:17 | and the politics of people who have tried to dissuade others from joining | |
| 03:21 | that March, who tried to demonize its organizers, who tried to send | |
| 03:26 | other messages like that; this in itself was an historic moment, and the messages | |
| 03:30 | that were addressed, to say that we are the nation TOO, to say that secularism | |
| 03:34 | isn’t something that should be injuring diversity and the plurality of religions, | |
| 03:38 | to say that denouncing Islamophobia isn’t denying in any shape or form the reality | |
| 03:42 | of other racist phenomena in modern society — THAT was an historic moment and that | |
| 03:46 | is what contorted so many different opinions, sometimes diverging from | |
| 03:50 | positive opinions, also negative opinions, and that is what is creating a tension | |
| 03:54 | and which turns this moment into an historic moment. —Ivan Rioufol you are the chronicler | |
| 03:59 | at Le Figaro [newspaper], your latest book is entitled “Macron a Big Masquerade | |
| 04:03 | with Yellow Vests”. It’s a collection of your editorials in Le Figaro | |
| 04:07 | from 2016-2017, published by l’Artilleur. You are also the author of “The | |
| 04:11 | Civil War That is Coming” [published by] Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, your next book | |
| 04:15 | “The Traitors”, will be published in January by the same publishing house, and you assisted | |
| 04:19 | at the March Against Islamophobia on November 10th, which also had as participants — | |
| 04:23 | I could have mentioned it at the start — Jean Luc Mélenchon [communist], | |
| 04:26 | Clémentine Hautain [feminist], Esther Benbassa [French-Turkish-Israeli historian and politician]; | |
| 04:31 | [unintelligible], you wrote an article about it in your blog entitled: | |
| 04:35 | “The Shameful Rally Equals Accepted Hatred [of France]”. You even talk about | |
| 04:38 | a “hateful gathering”, so what is YOUR take on this march? —I found that there | |
| 04:41 | the masks have fallen off. I was, of course, very satisfied by this rally. | |
| 04:44 | First of all because I was ejected from it, [or] at least, I ejected myself from the rally, | |
| 04:48 | which has been presented as harmless in the sense that | |
| 04:52 | after one hour of insults thrown by women | |
| 04:56 | in hijab or headscarves as well as by rather bottom-feeding Leftists. | |
| 05:01 | I could see very well that my presence was beginning to be problematic, so I preferred to leave. | |
| 05:04 | It was the first time in my life I’ve had to leave a rally, | |
| 05:07 | because I often follow them; I like to immerse myself in those rallies, | |
| 05:10 | because you can feel there, very precisely, what the other side of the discourse is. | |
| 05:14 | So the other side of the discourse, of course, it wasn’t — at least I didn’t see it — | |
| 05:17 | an anti-racist rally: I saw an anti-France rally. | |
| 05:22 | I mean that I saw France insulted and called “racist.” —When people say ‘secularism’… | |
| 05:26 | I saw, please, I saw, I’m telling you what I saw | |
| 05:30 | I saw that France was called “racist”, was called in fact “Islamophobic”, | |
| 05:34 | which was “Nazified” since there was a parallel made | |
| 05:38 | between the fate of today’s Muslims and the fate of Jews… | |
| 05:42 | … neither organizers nor… —and the fate of… —would you mind letting me talk? You’ll be fine. | |
| 05:47 | Please. And the fate of the Jews in the 1930s and during [German] occupation, | |
| 05:51 | and with horrors, of course, which I expected, since, | |
| 05:55 | in fact, I knew rather well what would happen, and so, from my point of view, | |
| 05:59 | I found that this political expression was an expression that was | |
| 06:03 | totally making the point, and even more so that I saw in it a sad collaboration | |
| 06:07 | of the entire extreme Left, which sided with those who are defending — in my opinion — | |
| 06:12 | a liberty-killing, totalitarian, Judeophobic and sexist ideology, | |
| 06:16 | and so I saw — in it — an abomination of abominations, but at the same time I’m very happy | |
| 06:20 | to debate with you, because we will be able to tell one another things face to face. And especially | |
| 06:23 | that I’m not — to be perfectly clear — I don’t think that you’re the principal | |
| 06:28 | adversary to combat; in fact, you’re only a symptom. | |
| 06:32 | You, your movement, you are only a symptom. The real adversaries are those, in the government, | |
| 06:36 | in the successive governments, who, for the last 30 to 40 years allowed you to fill the void. | |
| 06:41 | And in fact I don’t blame you: you are trying to fill a void, and it’s the void that | |
| 06:45 | I’m criticizing, and in which I’ll criticize those traitors who abandoned the nation. | |
| 06:49 | OK, so it’s interesting, we understand | |
| 06:52 | that you are disappointed. You went to look for hate and you only found people who were | |
| 06:55 | singing the Marseillaise. —I, in fact, I… —No, I will finish! —I did find hate. I did find hate. | |
| 06:58 | I know that you are very proud of your politeness, and therefore you will be capable of listening | |
| 07:01 | to me till the end. —Yes, yes. —So you went to look for hate, you also went to provoke people. | |
| 07:06 | All year long, you [write] about your subjects… —Oh, really? —No, relax! | |
| 07:10 | Be calm! Be courteous! Let me finish. So you went to look for hate, | |
| 07:14 | and you found people singing the Marseillaise, who respect secularism, | |
| 07:18 | who say that there are a number of problems in our society, and because they love this society, | |
| 07:22 | they would like to fix it. And you found people from all the religions, who were fraternizing, | |
| 07:26 | and this is already very good news that you could be welcomed. —I think that with you we | |
| 07:31 | will be in the world of Orwell: hate is love, war is peace and so on… —Now we will finish | |
| 07:35 | …and so on. We will have a lot of fun. Finish, now. —You seem to have problems | |
| 07:39 | every time I say something. Breathe, have a glass of water, relax, hydrate. —No, no, I’m fine. | |
| 07:43 | You’ll be fine. —Yes, yes, yes. —So I was saying: in order to understand, | |
| 07:46 | and to clarify your obsession with subjects concerning Muslims, | |
| 07:49 | one has only to read your writings. Out of one hundred articles that you | |
| 07:52 | recently wrote, there are 52 that talk about Islam, 22 that talk about immigration | |
| 07:56 | and one that talks about unemployment; which gives one a good idea of your priorities today | |
| 08:00 | concerning the situation in France. And what is putting you in such distress | |
| 08:04 | and in such an identitarian panic, at the end of the day, is that what is going on is exactly | |
| 08:08 | what is written on our gates. On the gates of the town halls is written | |
| 08:12 | Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. And when people mobilize to take to the street | |
| 08:17 | and transform those slogans into a real equality, | |
| 08:20 | this is a problem for you, because for the first time… — No, I’ve nothing… all right. | |
| 08:23 | —for the first time people are mobilizing in a useful way, and they say that the religion of others | |
| 08:26 | is their problem and the origins of others isn’t a problem. —I get it, I get it. I have no problem. | |
| 08:29 | —Of course you have a problem. You wrote about it in the [unintelligible] — No, I have with, | |
| 08:33 | I only have a problem with the truth. That’s all. —I understood that you have a problem with | |
| 08:37 | the truth. We have all understood. —Voilà, so. —However, Ivan Rioufol isn’t the only one to have | |
| 08:41 | accused that rally of all evils, as I said before. | |
| 08:46 | But, before we continue this debate, I would like to go back to… —I would only like to. | |
| 08:50 | I would only like to… about one sentence, because, still, in the lies that you enumerate, there are | |
| 08:54 | some that … —Factually! —Yes, factually, me too, yes, yes, yes, factually. When you say | |
| 08:58 | for example: there was a banner saying: “Islamophobia kills” I confirm it for you, indeed, | |
| 09:02 | Islamophobia does kill. It kills those who have been designated as Islamophobes. | |
| 09:07 | It killed the Charlie Hebdo journalists, who were named by your friends, by you, as Islamophobes. | |
| 09:12 | —No, no, stop immediately! You stop that now! —NO, wait; the reproaches you make about | |
| 09:15 | interruptions, apply them to yourself. You’ll be fine. Also drink some water and hydrate yourself. | |
| 09:19 | You are accusing of something called by the law… —No, please, no, please, | |
| 09:23 | It’s an accusation which is called apology of terrorism. —No, No, please | |
| 09:27 | —…which counts as an apology for terrorism… —So you prove the fact that we can’t have a discussion… | |
| 09:32 | —…support and incite the murder of journalists, is called inciting to murder | |
| 09:36 | and apology for terrorism. I’m asking you to prove your accusation. — And, yes indeed, | |
| 09:39 | and when you say… —…you are a journalist; I’m asking you to prove your accusation. | |
| 09:42 | —This accusation is proven by the fact that when people, when the journalists of Charlie Hebdo | |
| 09:45 | were… —For the last time. We have a rule of law… — No, please, | |
| 09:48 | …you called the journalists of Charlie Hebdo ‘Islamophobes’ and some madmen decided | |
| 09:52 | they were a living target. And when you designate me an ‘Islamophobe’, | |
| 09:55 | I’m a living target as well. —No, you… —But it’s not only that. —I’m not | |
| 09:58 | identifying you as Islamophobe; I comment on your work. —Of course you say nothing | |
| 10:01 | at all, you are a little lamb. Please. —70% of your work is about Islam. | |
| 10:05 | —You already said so. You risk repeating yourself. | |
| 10:09 | The second thing that is going on and that is hiding behind Islamophobia is that | |
| 10:12 | Islamophobia is censorship. Because I would like to remind you, because | |
| 10:16 | I know CCIF very well, you write all day long… —It annoys you, | |
| 10:20 | it annoys you? —No, I’m very happy for you… —Please, please… | |
| 10:23 | …but don’t say you’re being censored again tonight! You’re in the TV studio all year long — | |
| 10:26 | Please, please… —Don’t complain! It’s your job, you’re being paid for that. | |
| 10:29 | —Finish your sentence, Ivan Rioufol! — I was involved with CCIF for a long time, and I… | |
| 10:32 | the way CCIF understands the debate, and they understand | |
| 10:35 | the debate like in the picture they have given you. I mean, I was prosecuted myself | |
| 10:38 | by the CCIF, a couple of years ago, for saying that CCIF was speaking nonsense, when they | |
| 10:43 | called themselves the Nation, a little bit of the Great Replacement is showing there, and above all | |
| 10:47 | I dared to criticize one of their | |
| 10:51 | advertisements about the Nation [Ummah] precisely, and so I was subjected to | |
| 10:55 | judiciary intimidation, the Judiciary Jihad, which brings you… —Having respect | |
| 10:59 | the law is for you jihad? —…which brings you to a trial, which I won, | |
| 11:03 | and you lost. You appealed, you wanted to go to the court of Cassation | |
| 11:08 | and you chickened out, of course, because it’s called intimidation | |
| 11:12 | of a journalist; it’s called an attempt at censorship. So you are the one who… | |
| 11:16 | —You’re pretending to be a victim, of course. —Oh, yes, that suits you well! | |
| 11:19 | Your employer has been sentenced for inciting racial hate. Your employer Le Figaro was sentenced… | |
| 11:24 | Hey, are you crazy? Are you crazy? —…several times for inciting racial hate —No, not me. Stop. | |
| 11:28 | You are a censor and you are a totalitarian. |
This comment is from France.
1) For two or three days Iwas unable to connect to GoV, getting instead a blank page with a 403-“forbidden” message.
I see that I was not the only one.
I believe also that this snafu was not accidental but intentional. I am glad it was repaired. To me it shows that somebody somewhere wants to harm GoV. This is scary.
2) About the TV debate between Ivan Rioufol and the Muslim guy, Ivan Rioufol is one of a handfull of journalists in France — among them the great Eric Zemmour — who are trying with great courage to fight France’s Islamization.
This small group is endlessly threatened with lawsuits and even with jail by a judicial system completely sold out to the hard left and the pro-Islam equivalent of your Deep State.
As for this Marwan Muhammad he is a well known Islamist agitator. He is most famous – or rather infamous– for having said a few years back ( I quote from memory) : ” Who has the right to deprieve us of the dream that in 30 or 40 years France will be a Muslim country?”.
Recently, during the ” March against Islamophobia” in Paris, he climbed on a truck’s roof and led a crowd of hundred of hard-core muslims to yell ” Allah U Akbar”in the street. This happened a few blocks from the Bataclan hall where more than a hundred concert goers were slautered by French born jihadists a few years ago!
In France Muslim immigrants are more and more restless. Worst of all, they are encouraged by French hard Left traitors.
Our country is in dire straits indeed.
They have what they vote it for , mess like hell , this Muslim guy is very obnoxious, it will be better if they vote for Marine Le Pen ? This Notre Dame will be still standing with no fire and severe damage, sooo sad …