The Malta government said on Monday that a war of words which followed the brutal killing of French teacher Samuel Paty should not be allowed to deteriorate, making an already polarised world much worse.
Paty was beheaded near his school in a Paris suburb on October 16. The killing was carried out by an 18-year-old muslim Chechen, who was then shot and killed by police. The teacher's killing came after he showed his pupils some cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as part of a class discussion on freedom of expression.
French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to take the fight to Islamic radicals. He said France would "not give up cartoons" and said Paty "was killed because Islamists want our future".
But his comments triggered protests in Muslim-majority countries at the weekend, with people burning pictures of Macron in Syria and setting fire to French flags in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
Boycotts of French goods are under way in supermarkets in Qatar and Kuwait, with further calls to spurn French products in Jordan and other states.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday called on Turks to boycott French goods. On Saturday he urged Macron to have "mental checks" for treating "millions of members from different faith groups this way" -- comments which prompted Paris to recall its envoy to Ankara.
The EU said the comments against the French president were unacceptable.
The head of France's MEDEF employers' federation said the boycott, which he described as "foolishness", was clearly bad news for companies already hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
"But there is no question of giving in to blackmail," Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux told broadcaster RMC. "It is a question of sticking to our republican values.
"There is a time to put principles above business."
The Malta Foreign Ministry in its statement on Monday said it again unreservedly condemned the murder of the French teacher Samuel Paty.
"We must work together to combat terrorism and fanaticism. We must not allow a war of words to deteriorate further, making an already polarised world much worse. We hope that a dialogue can be re-established at the earliest," it said.