PARIS - King Hassan of Morocco assured of a warm welcome yesterday on his first state visit to Paris in more than a decade, told French leaders that Muslim fundamentalism was not inevitable.
In an interview published hours before he was to arrive, the veteran monarch told the daily Le Parisien. "There is nothing inevitable about fundamentalism. "The surest response to the fundamentalist drift is freedom, a judicious education and a fair balance between respect and protection of [Muslims] identity and the necessary achievements of modernity," he said.