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FFrance is in shock: for the second time in a short time, a brutal attack has rocked the country. According to French media reports, at least three people were killed in a church service in the center of the city of Nice, in southern France, on Thursday morning. Witnesses reported that a woman was beheaded inside the church and a man was stabbed multiple times.
The man is said to be a church guard. The perpetrator killed another woman in front of the church before the police shot him dead. According to the newspaper “Nice Matin”, the attacker is said to be a 21-year-old Tunisian who has so far not been detected by the police. According to the very conservative MP Eric Ciotti the killer recently arrived in France via Lampedusa
The government declared the highest level of terrorism alert. Prime Minister Jean Castex told the National Assembly that the “Urgent Care” stage of the “Vigipirato” anti-terrorist alert plan had been declared. The security situation in France had previously been tense after a suspected Islamist beheaded a history teacher on the street about two weeks ago. The teacher had shown the controversial cartoons of Muhammad in class.
Source: WORLD infographic
Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi said shortly after the crime on the BFM TV news channel that there was little doubt that it was an Islamist attack. The author called “Allahu Akbar” several times when he was arrested. It is important to fight “Islamofascism” with all determination, said the conservative politician. “The laws of peace” were apparently no longer sufficient for this. The French Council of Muslims (CFCM) condemned the attack “in the strongest way” and called on Muslims in France to cancel all celebrations on Mawlid, the Prophet’s birthday, “as a sign of sadness and solidarity”.
The perpetrator was seriously injured when the police intervened. It is said that he was hospitalized. Police specialists searched the church for explosives in the course of the morning and the area was cordoned off. The Notre-Dame de L’Assomption Basilica is located in the heart of central Nice, on the busy main shopping street, Avenue Jean-Médecin.
President Macron heads to Nice
The Côte d’Azur metropolis had already been the target of an Islamist attack on July 14, 2016. On the French national holiday, the murderer, a 31-year-old Tunisian named Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, drove a truck into the crowd who wanted to see fireworks on the Promenade des Anglais, killing 86 people. A few days later, on July 26, 2016, two Islamists beheaded 86-year-old priest Jacques Hamel at his church in the small community of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy. Today’s attack in Nice has brought this murder back to consciousness.
The Paris counter-terrorism prosecutor’s office has now launched an investigation into “murder in connection with a terrorist project”. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin convened a crisis cell in Paris. Darmanin had warned several times in recent days of an increased risk of terrorism in the country. In the French National Assembly, where in the morning the new measures of the Crown were debated, the deputies observed a minute of silence. President Emmanuel Macron wanted to go to Nice in the afternoon, announced the Elysee Palace.
The French Episcopal Conference called the attack “indescribable.” “We are worried, very hurt and in a way numbed by this unspeakable act,” said the spokesman for the Episcopal Conference, Father Hugues de Woillemont. “There is an urgency to combat this ulcer, which is terrorism,” said the father, adding that at the same time there is “an urgency to promote brotherhood in our country.”
The Nice attack comes at a time of extreme political tension in France. The night before, Macron had announced measures for a second blockade due to the dramatic increase in the number of corona cases in the country in a television address that was followed by more than 32 million French people. In France, the number of new infections was more than 36,000 on Thursday, a total of more than 1,235 million people are infected in France, and the rate of positive test results is currently 18.6 percent.
Above all, the country remains under the impact of the brutal murder of teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded two weeks ago on Friday in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris, by an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin. A few weeks earlier, Paty had discussed the topic of free speech in class using cartoons of Mohammed.
Although he had offered Muslim students to leave the room if the discussion offended their religious sentiments, some parents became angry and demanded disciplinary action against the teacher by the school administration. With the help of radical Islamists, a father started a veritable campaign on the Internet and accused Paty, among other things, of showing students pornographic images. The perpetrator, who did not come from school and lived nearly 90 kilometers away, was likely inspired by this campaign.
A “hate tirade” against France
A week ago on Wednesday, President Macron had promised at a memorial service to Samuel Paty at the Sorbonne University in Paris that he would honor Paty’s legacy and continue the fight against Islamism. France will continue to defend the right to freedom of expression and will not renounce cartoons and drawings, as others have already done under increasing pressure of opinion.
These statements by Macron sparked a wave of protests in the Arab world. There were demonstrations in numerous countries in which Macron was accused of “Islamophobia”. Stores removed French products from the shelves in several Arab countries. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attacked Macron several times last weekend, accusing him of having a problem with Muslims and recommending that he have his mental health checked.
Erdogan criticized “Charlie Hebdo” in the cartoon dispute
The French satirical newspaper “Charlie Hebdo” features a cartoon of Turkish President Erdogan on the front page. He reacts indignantly. The crisis between Paris and Ankara is reaching a critical point.
On Monday, Erdogan also called for a boycott of French products. The French government vigorously protested Ankara’s “exaggerations and insults” and called its ambassador to Turkey back to Paris for consultations. The German government, the EU’s foreign representative, Josep Borrell, and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, also condemned Erdogan’s statements.
The diplomatic crisis came to a head on Wednesday after the satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” published a crude cartoon of Erdogan on the cover of its latest issue. Erdogan called the cartoon a “disgusting attack”, which, however, does not apply to himself, but to the values we “stand for”. It is a matter of honor to oppose the attacks against the Prophet.
Heated debate increases the risk
French government spokesman Gabriel Attal spoke on Wednesday after the weekly Council of Ministers at the Elysee Palace, without directly naming Turkey, about the “acute terrorist threat of recent days”, which is being fueled by “speeches from hatred “against France. The country is “the target of attempts at destabilization and intimidation.” But that only reinforces “our determination to act against Islamism and its vicissitudes without ceasing.”
When specifically asked about a tweet from Turkish Deputy Minister of Culture Serdar Çam, who described the editors of “Charlie Hebdo” as “bastards” and “sons of bitches”, Attal said that despite all the intimidation, France would not revoke its principles and values and would not question freedom of expression. put on. These are “hateful statements against an editorial team and against journalists who have suffered assassinations and attacks.”
It seems obvious that recent heated debates increase the risk of attack. According to reports from Europe 1 station, another attack on bystanders was prevented on Thursday morning in Montfavet, near Avignon. A man threatened people with a gun and shouted “Allahu Akbar”. The police shot him dead.
In Saudi Arabia, a security guard at the French consulate in Jeddah was attacked with a knife and injured. The man had been taken to hospital and is not in danger of death, Saudi state media reported. The attacker was arrested. The French embassy in Saudi Arabia asked all French people to “be more vigilant.” The Foreign Ministry has also issued warnings for French citizens of Turkey, Bangladesh and Indonesia. But it turns out that these are not currently safe in Germany either.
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