(AFP) French authorities said Tuesday they would close a Paris mosque in a clampdown on radical Islam that has yielded over a dozen arrests following the beheading of a teacher who had shown his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
The mosque in a densely-populated suburb northeast of Paris had published a video on its Facebook page days before Friday’s gruesome murder, railing against teacher Samuel Paty’s choice of material for a class discussion on freedom of expression, said a source close to the investigation.
The interior ministry said the mosque in Pantin, which has some 1,500 worshippers, would be shut on Wednesday night for six months.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has vowed there would be “not a minute’s respite for enemies of the Republic.”
