Jean-François Ricard, France’s high antiterrorism prosecutor, mentioned that “the phrases uttered by the assailant” on the time of the stabbing indicated it was a terrorist assault. He didn’t particularly affirm reviews that the attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or God is nice, in Arabic.
Agence France-Presse, the information company, reported that the social media posts of the assailant, recognized solely as Jamel, have been typically devoted to denunciations of Islamophobia in France and assaults on outstanding right-wing commentators, together with Eric Zemmour, the creator of the best-selling ebook “The French Suicide.”
Extra just lately, these posts have been dominated by verses from the Quran. Days after the beheading six months ago of a teacher, Samuel Paty, who had proven cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to a category on free speech, the assailant had joined a marketing campaign titled “Respect Mohammed, Prophet of God,” the company reported.
It was not clear, as a wide-ranging police investigation started, whether or not the person, who was residing in Rambouillet, had acted alone. A number of current terrorist incidents have concerned self-radicalized people who’ve proved arduous for the French authorities to hint.
President Emmanuel Macron reacted to the killing with vows to combat on unbowed towards “Islamist terrorism.” Earlier than the killing, he had promised in an interview with Le Figaro to recruit an extra 10,000 cops and gendarmes, a mirrored image of his willpower to uphold “the appropriate to a peaceable life.” This phrase was rapidly mocked after the stabbing.
“A peaceable life, Emmanuel Macron?” Guillaume Peltier of the center-right Republicans wrote on Twitter, accusing the president of “an inexcusable renunciation of braveness and motion.” As for Ms. Le Pen, she was blunt: “France can’t stand this any longer.”
