French Interior Minister Manuel Valls denounced “the Islamic fascism rising everywhere,” after the assassination in Tunisia of an opposition anti-Islamist leader earlier this week.
“There is an Islamic fascism rising every­where, but this obscurantism must, of course, be condemned because it denies the democracy for which the Libyan, Tunisian and Egyptian people have fought,” Valls he told Europe 1 radio.
The minister said Choukri Belaid, the political leader killed earlier this week, was “one of the democrats and we must support these democrats so that the values of the Jasmine Revolution are not betrayed.”
On Satuardy, thousand supporters of Tunisia’s ruling Ennhada Islamist party rallied in the capital Tunis to protest “French interference” in Tunisian interior affairs.
The demonstrators waved flags of the Ennahda party and shouted "Get out, France!"
Tunisia's Islamist Prime Minister Hamid Jabali said that he will resign if his proposal to appoint a a non-political cabinet by mid-week is rejected.
Jebali's Ennahda party has already rejected his proposal but he didn't flinch, saying in an interview with the France-24 TV channel that to change the situation government ministers must be replaced by technocrats without a political affiliation."I feel obliged to save my country," he said, adding that Tunisia risks a "swing into chaos."
Tunisians overthrew the autocratic but secularist president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, sparking the Arab Spring revolutions.