i don’t remember a time France wasn’t reactionary (in my lifetime obviously). they were in the islamophobia business way before it was cool everywhere else.
The bigotry is not in “there are evil Muslims…”, the bigotry is in following it up with “… hence Muslims are evil”.
Whilst it’s still racism to think “this minority ethnicity are good people” (because it’s still generalising by etnicity and prejudice) like some neolibs cosplaying as lefties do, that doesn’t make the “some people who did bad deeds are from a specific ethnicity hence the whole ethnicity is bad” thinking of the far-right (who cosplay as facing of against those neolibs in identitarian wars) any less racist prejudice.
As I’ve previously elaborated on in a comment in reply to a similar statement - this has less to do with being anti-islam and more to do with being anti-religion. The French have had a long history with organized religion.
