Viral Swing: French moderate imam requests extra police protection amid death threats over support for Macron

One of France’s highest profile imams has appealed to President Emmanuel Macron for increased police protection after receiving “thousands” of death threats over his condemnation of terrorist attacks. Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Paris suburb of Drancy and a leading Muslim moderate, said he had received a torrent of new threats since he spoke out against the beheading of a French teacher last month. Mr Chalghoumi described Samuel Paty, the teacher murdered after showing his class cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, as a “martyr for freedom of expression, and a wise man who has taught tolerance, civilisation and respect for others”. As president of the Conference of Imams of France, Mr Chalghoumi has worked to improve relations between Muslims and Jews. He supports France’s ban on the face veil and has called for tolerance of caricatures of the prophet. The 48-year-old Tunisian-born imam has lived under police guard since Islamic State called for his “execution” following the 2015 Paris attacks. He now believes the danger has risen sharply with the surge in threats on social media. An Arabic post on Twitter said: “We urge true Muslims of France to allow Chalghoumi to join the history teacher and also become a martyr of the nation.” Another post intercepted on the Telegram messaging service described Mr Chalghoumi as “your new target” and called on followers to “execute him because he is filthier than those French infidels”.