More blasphemous cartoons, says Sarkozy

JACK GUEZ/AFP

Never one to eschew a dramatic gesture, French interior minister and presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has just popped up in the middle of a court case on blasphemous cartoons (several Islamic organizations had sued a French magazine for reprinting cartoons of Muhammad).

A lawyer for the magazine read a letter out from Mr Sarkozy, who is standing as presidential candidate for the right-wing UMP. Mr Sarkozy noted he was often a target of the magazine but said he would prefer “too many caricatures to an absence of caricature”.

Several French Muslim organizations are overreacting, just as Sarkozy no doubt expected they would. So Sarkozy gets to make a good stand on principle, offer up some faux self-deprecation, and stand up to opponents of free speech: not a bad day’s work for the man likely to be France’s next president.