French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday he respected Muslims who were shocked by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad but that was no excuse for violence, as his officials ramped up security after a knife attack in a French church that killed three people this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron pays his respects by the coffin of Samuel Paty in Paris on Wednesday during a national homage to the French teacher, who was beheaded in broad daylight outside his school. Seven people, including two schoolchildren, will appear before an anti-terror judge for a decision on criminal charges over the killing of the 47-year-old teacher. Photo: AFP
An assailant shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in Nice on Thursday, in France's second deadly knife attack in two weeks with a suspected Islamist motive.
The suspected assailant, a 21-year-old from Tunisia, was shot by police and is now in critical condition in a hospital.
Police said on Saturday that another person was taken into custody in connection with the attack.
That person joins three others already in custody on suspicion of contacts with the attacker. Macron has deployed thousands of soldiers to protect sites such as places of worship and schools, and ministers have warned that other Islamist militant attacks could take place.
The Nice attack, on the day Muslims celebrated the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, came amid growing Muslim anger across the world over France's defense of the right to publish cartoons depicting the Prophet.
On October 16, Samuel Paty, a school teacher in a Paris suburb, was beheaded by an 18-year-old Chechen who was apparently incensed by the teacher showing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in class during a civics lesson.
Protesters have denounced France in street rallies in several Muslim-majority countries, and some have called for boycotts of French goods.
France, on edge in anticipation of more possible attacks, was jolted on Saturday evening when a Greek Orthodox priest was shot and wounded in his church in the south eastern city of Lyon. But officials gave no indication that terrorism was suspected.
In an effort to rectify what he said were misapprehensions about France's intentions in the Muslim world, Macron gave an interview to Arabic television network Al Jazeera that was broadcast on Saturday. In it, he said France would not back down in the face of violence and would defend the right to free expression, including the publication of cartoons. But he stressed that did not mean he or his officials supported the cartoons, which Muslims consider blasphemous, or that France was in any way anti-Muslim.
Newspaper headline: Govt hears anger, but will not back down