| EFL |
Police said the marchers had not notified the authorities about the demonstration, which passed off peacefully and appeared to be spontaneous, with 50 initial participants telephoning or sending text messages to friends.
A young woman giving her name as Nour told French television: "Westerners do not want to understand that they have shown a lack of respect to all Muslims in caricaturing our prophet whom we do not even have the right to portray."
"Our aim is simple: we want public apologies, " said one speaker.
The publication of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, has sparked angry protests and attacks against Western interests in parts of the Muslim world. Three French newspapers have used the cartoons.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin
But he condemned the "spiral of violence" in the protests over the cartoons. "We are not living in any old time and we cannot act in the same way in all eras and all situations," he said, pointing to the "transparency of the world" resulting from the globalisation of the means of communication and information.
Villepin said freedom had to be defended but argued: "It is a matter of knowing that there are sensitivities, different ways of living your religion, and taking that into account," he said. "Of course we must defend freedom but at the same time — and this is what living together is about — and we must defend respect, respect of others ... in the name of tolerance."
| How ... nuanced. |
While French flags burned in many Muslim countries in protests over the weekend, security forces in the Syrian capital used tear gas and water cannons to prevent demonstrators from attacking the French embassy, AFP reporters said, as an angry protest swelled over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.