Macron warns against religious hate after Muslim killed in mosque
LA GRAND-COMBE: France's President Emmanuel Macron lashed out Sunday against "racism and hatred" after the brutal stabbing to death of a Muslim in a mosque in the south of the country.
Officials said the attacker, who is on the run, stabbed Aboubakar Cisse, a young Malian in his early 20s, dozens of times and then filmed him with a mobile phone while shouting insults at Islam.
The attack in the village of La Grand-Combe in the Gard region was the latest in a series of deadly stabbings in France in recent years.
It shocked the country's leaders, with Macron finally speaking out on X on Sunday.
"Racism and hatred based on religion can have no place in France. Freedom of worship cannot be violated," he wrote, offering support to "our fellow Muslim citizens."
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou earlier branded it an "Islamophobic atrocity" – although the prosecutor in the case emphasised that Islamophobia is just one of the motives being considered.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said in televised comments on Sunday that he had ordered police to tighten security at mosques around the country.
Around 1,000 people on Sunday marched through La Grand-Combe, which has just 5,000 inhabitants, to remember the victim.
Hundreds also rallied in Paris, where far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon accused the government of nurturing a "climate of Islamophobia" at a time when immigration is top of the political agenda.
Retailleau accused Melenchon's party of exploiting the attack for political ends.
Investigators said the alleged killer sent the video he had filmed with his phone – showing the victim writhing in agony – to another person, who then shared it on a social media platform before deleting it.
A source close to the case, who asked not to be named, said the suspected perpetrator, while not apprehended, had been identified as a French citizen of Bosnian origin who is not a Muslim.
After initially praying alongside the man when they were alone in the mosque, the attacker stabbed the victim up to 50 times before fleeing the scene.
The body of the victim was discovered later in the morning when other worshippers arrived at the mosque for Friday prayers.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) said it was "horrified" by the "anti-Muslim terrorist attack" and urged Muslims in France to be "extremely vigilant."
"The murder of a worshipper in a mosque is a despicable crime that must revolt the hearts of all French people," added the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF).
The attacker has been named only as Olivier A., born in France in 2004 and unemployed without a criminal record.
He is "potentially extremely dangerous" and it is "essential" to arrest him before he claims more victims, said regional prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini.
But while the motive of Islamophobia is the lead that the 70 investigators are "working on as a priority... it is not the only one", Grini said.
There are "certain elements (which) could suggest that this motive was perhaps not the primary motive... or the only motive," he added, without elaborating.
Grini was speaking in the regional centre of Ales, near La Grand-Combe, alongside Retailleau, a hardline right-winger who takes a tough line on immigration and Islam.
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