The kidnapping of French journalists has backfired in several ways, writes Laila Hafez from Paris As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press, two French hostages, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, journalists for Radio France International and Le Figaro respectively, were still in custody, their fate unknown. Whatever the outcome will be of the hostage drama, three things are sure to have developed. First, it became clear to the world that the concern for justice and multilateralism that France displayed since the beginning of the war in Iraq in 2003 is paying back. The so-called Islamic Army in Iraq announced that it has kidnapped two French journalists, and demanded that France overturn the law banning students in state schools from displaying any religious symbols in their dress, including headscarves -- hijab -- for Muslim girls. France succeeded in mobilising the Arab and Islamic world on its behalf. In less than a week, Minister of Foreign Affairs Michel Barnier was dispatched to Egypt then to Jordan and Gulf states to seek a solution to the hostage crisis. Quickly France garnished solidarity from most Arab leaders as well as Arab public opinion expressed in Arab media. It also benefited from the solidarity expressed by most of the Islamic organisations and institutions, both Sunni and Shia, inside and outside of Iraq. Everybody has acknowledged that France is a friend to the Arab world and that it should not endure this ordeal in Iraq, the country that France refused to invade with the United States and its allies a year ago. Second, for the first time French Muslims have confirmed their identity as French citizens. This crisis brought to their consciousness the fact that they are French citizens first and that nobody from the outside has the right to interfere in their disputes with the French state. The French Council of the Muslims of France (CFCM) and all the Islamic organisations in France, even the most fundamentalist among them, made it clear to the kidnappers that the law banning religious dress in schools, concerns the Muslims in France and them alone. They have also affirmed to the world that they are quite capable of handling their dispute with the French state in a peaceful manner. At the same time, the CFCM has become, for the first time since its foundation in 2003, the Muslim interlocutor with the French state, like the Catholic Church and the Jewish Consistoire. Which means that all the Muslim organisations are talking with one voice with the French state, and this is what the CFCM was meant to be from the start. Third, and lastly, the United States and their allies, who waged war against Saddam Hussein's regime without the green light of the United Nations and then could not justify the war either by finding weapons of mass destruction or the link between Hussein and Al- Qaeda, realised with a lot of indignation, that the policy of France is gaining terrain with the populations of the Middle East, and with their religious leaders as well. This new reality dawned on the American allies in such a brutal and sudden way that they resorted to waging a war of words against France and its policy. The right-wing British media lashed out at French policy, ridiculing the way France was handling the kidnapping crisis by allegedly "pleading" for the release of the hostages, not condemning the kidnappers. At the same time, the US appointed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said in an interview with Le Monde that France's opposition to the war in Iraq did not spare it from terror, and attacked President Chirac himself in an editorial in an Iraqi newspaper saying: "Chirac, who wants to present himself as fair, must take his share of responsibility for the kidnapping of his two compatriots as he opposed all international resolutions aimed at restoring Iraq's security."
