I am not a politician. I have often been approached in this regard, but I have always declined these sorts of offers. I view myself as an independent, critical intellectual, as someone who tries to stimulate thought on the left and the right, to encourage intellectual evolution.

I am portrayed as a dangerous individual who can be fought thanks to their ideas.

Now no one can deny the fact that whatever is the state of the affairs in the country, you did not have the army controlling the country and you have a pluralistic society anyway.

I talk to the young generation and advise them to be both fully Muslim and fully Western citizens, to be free, to speak out, to express themselves. We have new generations of Muslims who were born in the West, coming from within, and they are well educated and they understand. Some sisters and brothers are ready, yes, even though I can see young sisters and brothers who are also obsessed with their social status, their titles, their salary and are scared to not be tolerated.

You're a man, but the day you raise your voice to your mother, you're not anymore.

The strength of democratic societies relies on their capacity to know how to stand firm against extremism while respecting justice in the means used to fight terrorism.

Just take Germany and the suffering of Jews during and after the Second World War. It would be legal to ridicule and to laugh at this suffering, but since it was such a trauma on the European conscience, no one is going to do it. It is an open scar, an open wound, an open reality.