The deadly stabbing of a Muslim worshiper in a mosque in France has prompted heated criticism of presidency officers who didn’t initially deal with it as a doable hate crime or present the diploma of concern that they had in different deadly assaults.
The sufferer, Aboubakar Cissé, a 21 year-old from Mali, was stabbed dozens of occasions Friday morning whereas he was praying in a mosque in La Grand-Combe, a small city in southern France, about 50 miles northwest of Avignon.
The principle suspect, who filmed himself standing over the sufferer, was heard insulting Allah within the video, which was posted on Snapchat, French news media reported.
An area prosecutor at first suggested — wrongly, it emerged — that the killing had stemmed from a dispute between two worshipers. However on Sunday, that prosecutor, Abdelkrim Grini, mentioned in a TV interview that the killing was being investigated as an “anti-Muslim act” or “an act with Islamophobic connotations.” Different motives are being explored, he added, together with “a fascination with dying, a need to kill and a need to be thought-about a serial killer.”
The suspect fled to Italy earlier than turning himself in on Sunday at a police station in Pistoia, a small city close to Florence, Cécile Gensac, the Nîmes prosecutor, said on Monday. The suspect was recognized as a French nationwide of Bosnian origin, born in 2004, who was beforehand unknown to the police, however nothing else about him or his views has been made public.
He has not but been returned to France, which a prosecutor mentioned might take weeks, or charged with a criminal offense.
“It’s an Islamophobic crime, it’s an act of terrorism, and at this time we’re afraid,” Aminata Konaté-Boune, a spokesperson for Mr. Cissé’s Soninke ethnic group, mentioned at a news conference with the sufferer’s household on Tuesday. “Tomorrow, what is going to occur? Will they arrive knocking on our doorways to kill us? Will there be a hunt for Muslims?”
The killing occurred the day after a girl was stabbed to death at a high school in Nantes, allegedly by one other pupil who was fascinated with Hitler. The varsity assault, which additionally wounded three others, prompted a robust and swift authorities response, prompting critics to accuse the federal government of a double customary.
Bruno Retailleau, France’s conservative inside minister, posted a message on social media on the day of the assault on the mosque expressing help for the sufferer’s household and the Muslim group.
However in contrast to in Nantes, the place he visited the crime scene hours after the assault, he didn’t instantly rush to the mosque. As a substitute, he traveled on Sunday to Alès, a close-by city, the place he met with the native prosecutor and mayors.
President Emmanuel Macron of France didn’t touch upon the assault till Sunday. “I lengthen the help of the nation to his household and to our fellow residents of the Muslim religion,” he mentioned on social media. “Racism and hatred based mostly on faith won’t ever have a spot in France. Freedom of worship is inviolable.”
Yoro Cissé, the sufferer’s cousin, advised the information company Agence France-Presse on Tuesday that no member of the federal government had contacted his household. “We need to really feel secure; France is a rustic we love,” he mentioned. “We need to really feel like everyone else.”
Ten p.c of France’s inhabitants is Muslim, in line with a 2023 research by the National Statistics Institute. Islam has grown, at a time when extra folks profess no spiritual affiliation, to turn out to be the nation’s second-largest religion.
France, which upholds its personal model of secularism often known as “laïcité” — guaranteeing freedom of conscience and the neutrality of the state and of some public areas — has an uneasy relationship with Islam. Muslim clothes like headscarves and full-length robes have stirred infinite debate and varied makes an attempt to ban them.
“The least we are able to say is that the authorities had been sluggish to react,” to the mosque killing, mentioned Hakim El Karoui, a Muslim enterprise guide and the creator of the guide “Islam, a French Faith.” “Being on the aspect of Muslims shouldn’t be common when you find yourself a politician in France.”
About 1,000 folks marched silently in La Grand-Combe on Sunday to honor Mr. Cissé’s reminiscence. However some deplored the absence of politicians, French news media reported.
One other demonstration was organized the identical day on the Place de la République in Paris on the behest of left-wing politicians and associations.
“This violence is the results of an Islamophobic local weather that has been cultivated for months,” mentioned Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the chief of the leftist France Unbowed occasion, during the protest. That the inside minister didn’t rush to go to the mosque was “incomprehensible,” he added.
On Tuesday, Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the Nationwide Meeting, held a minute of silence for Mr. Cissé within the decrease home, although she mentioned high lawmakers had not reached an settlement to take action.
Djibril Cissé, the sufferer’s uncle, mentioned that he had been shocked by the information protection of his nephew’s dying and by the reactions of politicians.
“He was a sociable one that was a supply of hope for all of us,” he mentioned.
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris.
