Libération, the bible of France’s liberal left, stands accused of Islamophobia, racism, and sexism after an article by one of its columnists in which he imagined the traditionally dressed Muslim woman beside him in the metro had a bomb under her robe.
The article published this week in the daily newspaper sparked thousands of angry comments on social media and forced the editor in chief to pen a defence of the author, Luc Le Vaillant.
Mr Le Vaillant wrote that as he travelled in the “post-attacks” train, he spotted a woman in a “raven-black abaya,” the loose-fitting robe that covers the body and head but not the face.
“If her neighbours’ eyes look on curiously, it is not to pinch her charming curves but to feel for the possibility of an explosive chastity belt,” he said.
He wrote that he tried to tell himself that he was over-reacting, that “this poor little believer” was harmless.
But, he then added, “I cannot stop myself seeing her as a fellow traveller of the people who stone adulterous couples and those who cut off the hands of thieves.”
Mr Le Vaillant said he was so worried by the woman’s presence that he got off the train before his destination.
The reaction to his article, penned in the aftermath of the Islamist attacks last month in Paris that killed 130 people, was swift and mostly furious.
“Luc Le Vaillant is wonderful, he is both sexist AND Islamophobic. Thanks @libe (Libération) for letting him speak his mind. Bliss,” wrote one woman on Twitter whose view echoed thousands of others on the micro-blogging site.
Many of Mr Le Vaillant’s colleagues at the left-wing newspaper, co-founded up by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1973, also distanced themselves from the columnist’s sentiments.
“A very large number of journalists have also expressed their disapproval of this content which does not, in their eyes, reflect the values of the paper and their personal convictions,” Libération’s journalists’ association said in a statement.
Editor in chief Laurent Joffrin wrote on the paper’s website that Mr Le Vaillant, who is also a senior editor at the daily, was writing about “fantasies and concerns that are current in society.”
“Without doubt he should have emphasised more carefully that this was not a fixed opinion but the literary and ironic restitution of prejudices and worries that, as he wrote, he reproaches himself for,” he said, adding that he apologised to any readers who might have been offended.
The column was still online on Wednesday.