French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed Wednesday evening in an article published in the Financial Times newspaper that "France is at war against Islamist separatism, and never against Islam," in response to an article published by the British daily on its website Monday, before it withdrew hours later.

In his lengthy response published by the newspaper as well as the Elysee Palace website, Macron expressed his dissatisfaction with that article, in which he said that he “was accused of having distorted the reputation of French Muslims for electoral purposes, and worse still, that he maintained a climate of fear and suspicion towards them.”

Macron said in his response, "I will not allow anyone to say that France and its country are sowing racism towards Muslims," considering that his statements had been distorted.

Similar to the statements he made during his interview with the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel last week, the French president wanted to make it clear to the outside world that his fight against "Islamist separatism" is not at all a war against Islam, at a time when his statements about cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad and published by Charlie Hebdo were met. Several countries responded with angry calls to boycott French products.

After recalling the series of assaults that his country had been subjected to since the attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015, which left 300 dead, Macron considered that France is under attack because of its values, secularism and freedom of expression in it, stressing that it "will not give up."

Macron elaborated on describing cases of Islamist "separatism,” considering them "fertile ground for terrorist calls." In this context, he referred to "hundreds of extremist individuals who are feared that they may pick up a knife at any time and go and kill Frenchmen."

The French president said that "in certain neighborhoods, as well as on the Internet, groups linked to radical Islam are teaching the people of France the hatred of the republic, and calling on them not to respect the laws."

"Do not you believe me? Read again the exchanged messages and calls for hate that spread in the name of misleading Islam on social media, and which ultimately led to the death of Professor Samuel Patty days ago. Visit neighborhoods where girls as young as three or four years old wear the niqab." An education under an atmosphere of "hatred for the values of France.”

Macron continued, "This is what France intends to fight today, and never (fight) Islam," stressing that his country wants to confront "darkness, intolerance and violent extremism, not religion."