(AFP) Former French president Francois Hollande maintained Sunday that jihadists had failed to divide the population with terror attacks in January 2015 that killed 17 people.
On Wednesday, 14 people face trial in connection with the murders, which heralded an unprecedented wave of attacks in France.
They are accused of helping to prepare the killings, but three who disappeared in northern Syria and Iraq will be tried in absentia.
“I feared the society could tear itself apart, because that was the terrorist’s goal: divide the French, stigmatise Muslims, create the spirit of hatred that in the end is what motivates them,” Hollande told France 2 television.
