When twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad were published by Denmark's largest newspaper in 2005, European muslim groups denounced the cartoons as insulting and sacrilegious. To everyone's surprise, the protests against the Muhammad drawings took a worldwide scale, even leading to violent demonstrations in several Muslim countries. In France, the satirical news magazine Charlie Hebdo joined the conversation and reprinted the controversial cartoons, causing an uproar among the country's growing Muslim population. Months later, the Great Mosque of Paris, the World Muslim League and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France took Charlie Hebdo's editor Philippe Val to court for defamation and incitement of hatred. Tough Being Loved by Jerks offers a real-time account of the ensuing trial, arguably one most divisive and heated legal proceedings in recent French history. The film features lawyers, witnesses, journalists, editorial conferences, demonstrations o
Following a botched attempt to deport a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated imam under a new “anti-separatist” law designed to counter radical Islamism, the French interior ministry is reportedly taking steps to expel others.
There are also teachers who, possibly because they are scared, choose to bow their heads, give up teaching certain subjects and when students shout anti-Semitic and anti-Western insults to act as if they hear nothing. It has become almost impossible in most French high schools to talk about either Israel or the Holocaust.
Most journalists seem to prefer avoiding all discussion of the advance of radical Islam in France. They know that those who do so are immediately called racists or Islamophobes and are often threatened, prosecuted, sentenced to heavy fines or fired from their place of work.