Controversy has erupted after unfounded claims against France that it would use a new law to register the identities of Muslim children.
Emmanuel Macron's government is testing a new bill to regulate the relationship between religion and the state, which seeks to ensure that extremists do not infiltrate public institutions.
One aspect of the legislation is a provision to severely restrict home schooling to only those who have medical needs, despite the pandemic having led to a surge in home education around the world.
The bill, drafted by Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, states that each child will be given an ID number that would be used to ensure they are attending school.
"We must save our children from the clutches of the Islamists," Mr Darmanin said last week.
But in a now-deleted tweet, Pakistan's Minister for Human Rights, Shireen Mazari, said: “Macron is doing to Muslims what the Nazis did to the Jews – Muslim children will get ID numbers just as Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing for identification.”
Ms Mazari then tweeted that she had taken the advice of Marc Barety, the French ambassador to Islamabad.
"The French envoy to Pakistan sent me the following message and as the article I had cited has been corrected by the relevant publication, I have also deleted my tweet on the same," she wrote.
The draft law also cracks down on online hate speech by allowing suspects to be summarily tried.
A separate controversy broker out as the opinion editor of The Washington Post, Karen Attiah, was forced to issue a retraction of her own.
"I do unequivocally apologise for the error I made in saying that Macron's bill targets Muslim children. I do have a responsibility to facts," Attiah wrote.
"And I do not want to make anything harder for my colleagues who are doing an amazing job with a difficult story."
She said she wanted to echo the criticism of "non-white" French commenters who had wanted to raise the alarm on Mr Macron for years.
Mr Macron has had a series of disputes with leading international news organisations in recent days.
Ben Smith of The New York Times said he had received a phone call from Mr Macron criticising the newspaper's reporting of recent developments in France.
“So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values – journalists who write in a country that is the heir to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution – when I see them legitimising this violence, and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost,” Mr Macron said.
In a letter to the Financial Times, he called as a reader for the removal of an article based on his reforms.
"The piece misquoted me, substituting 'Islamic separatism' – a term that I have never used – for 'Islamist separatism', which is a reality in my country," he wrote.
"It accused me of stigmatising French Muslims for electoral purposes and of fostering a climate of fear and suspicion towards them."
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
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What is safeguarding?
“Safeguarding, not just in sport, but in all walks of life, is making sure that policies are put in place that make sure your child is safe; when they attend a football club, a tennis club, that there are welfare officers at clubs who are qualified to a standard to make sure your child is safe in that environment,” Derek Bell explains.
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