Welcome to the inquiry. I'm Tanya Beckett. Each week one question, four experts and an answer.

At the end of October, Turkish President Erdogan took to the airwaves to tell his people to boycott French goods. Let him see this year. Second, Francis Marcalara.

Asna.

It voted me.

Do not seek out French goods, he said.

Do not buy them.

The televised address in the capital Ankara came as French products were removed from some shops in Kuwait,

Jordan and Qatar.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan accused the French President of attacking Islam,

and anti-French protests were staged in Bangladesh, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

What prompted the backlash was a series of speeches and interviews by French President Emmanuel Macron in the aftermath

of the beheading of French school teacher Samuel Pati, who'd shown cartoons of the

Prophet Mohammed during a class about freedom of speech.

In speaking about France's approach to uniting a multi-faith society, Macron alluded to the country's state religious neutrality, which

it calls la Icyte.

But far from offering Muslim's freedom of expression, critics say that L'Ecite is being weaponized to attack them.

So has French secularism gone too far?

Part 1, 1905. It is very much a unique concept and in fact it's very hard to translate into English.

Our first expert witness is Aurelian Mandan, a lecturer in politics and international studies at the University of Bath in the UK.

Some people say it's secularism, but it's a bit different from secularism and it really is very much entrenched in French history and therefore plays a particular

role in the French national identity and the way French people see themselves.

Laicite stems from a long evolution of the distancing of church from state in France.

...