PARIS: French President Jacques Chirac on Monday warned against "anything that increases tensions between peoples or religions", while answering an interview question on the remarks of Pope Benedict XVI on Islam.             

 

"We must avoid everything that increases tensions between peoples or religions," he said in an interview on Europe 1 radio.

 

"We must avoid any confusion between Islam, which is of course a respected and respectable religion, and radical Islamism which is a totally different form of behaviour and which is of a political nature," he said.