The French foreign minister asserted his country's "profound respect for Islam" during a visit to Cairo on Sunday in a dispute with the Muslim world over France's defence of the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian's visit comes in the wake of several attacks in France apparently provoked by anger over the defence of the caricatures, considered blasphemous by Muslims, as freedom of expression.

After meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Le Drian said an "anti-French" campaign in the Muslim world had often been the result of a distortion of French President Emmanuel Macron's comments on the issue...