Muslims have right to be angry & kill millions of French people: Malaysia's ex-PM

Kuala Lumpur: Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad waded into the controversy surrounding France and the Muslim world and made a bizarre assertion saying that Muslims had the right to be angry and to "kill millions of French people". In an apparent reference to the colonial times, Mohamad justified this 'right' by mentioning ''massacres of the past".

On Thursday, Mahathir Mohamad posted a series of 13 tweets from his personal Twitter handle and aired his opinions on issues ranging from women's clothing in western countries, West's adherence to their 'own religion', gender equality among other things and lashed out at French President Emmanuel Macron for not being "civilised" and for being "primitive" for targetting Muslims and Islam.He started the first tweet with words 'RESPECT OTHERS' but said that he did not approve killing of the French teacher by the Chechen youth.

Mohamad's tweets have come on the day when an attacker killed at least three people including a woman who he beheaded in the French city of Nice. The incident is being treated as a "terrorist" attack. The day also saw a Saudi man getting arrested in Jeddah after he attacked a guard of the French embassy in the city in Saudi Arabia.

Beheading of Samuel Paty, the teacher who showed Prophet Mohammed cartoons in school has prompted Emmanuel Macron  to promise a crackdown on Islamic extremism. But the move has inflamed tensions, with protests against France erupting in several Muslim countries, with some urging a boycott of French goods.

Since Paty's killing, French officials have re-asserted the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.

That has prompted anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some governments accusing Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam agenda.