Mohamed Merah – Eye on Islamism

Bereaved father from 2012 Toulouse attack: ‘We’re not safe but life goes on’ Yaacov Monsonego, director of the Ohr Torah (formerly Ozar Hatorah) school in the French city, lost his daughter Myriam to the terrorist shooting.

February 21, 2024 Amelie Botbol

(JNS) On March 19, 2012, Mohammed Merah, a French-Algerian supporter of al-Qaeda, carried out a shooting attack on the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, killing a teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two sons, Gabriel, 3, and Aryeh, 6, and an 8-year-old girl, Myriam […]

How Jewish journalist Ruth Elkrief wound up in the middle of France’s debate over antisemitism and Islamophobia

February 21, 2024 Shira Li Bartov

(JTA) The Jewish French-Moroccan journalist Ruth Elkrief — who has delivered TV news in France for over 30 years — found herself at the center of the story when she was placed under police protection in December. Elkrief received the security detail […]

French Jews worry Muslim unrest could see Macron flip on Israel, putting them at risk Reversing his stated support for Israel, the president demanded an end to ‘killing babies,’ triggering fears that he’s bowing to local pressures and thus inciting antisemitism

November 14, 2023 Canaan Lidor

(Times of Israel) On a solidarity visit to Israel last month, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to stand by Israel for the duration of its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “I want to assure you that you will not be […]

Netanyahu condemns ‘waves of antisemitism’ by rioters in France 'We support the French government in its fight against the scourge of antisemitism,' says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

July 2, 2023 Unlisted Author

(JNS) Israel is closely monitoring and deeply concerned about “waves of antisemitism sweeping over France,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting. “In recent days, we have witnessed criminal assaults against Jewish targets. We strongly condemn these attacks […]

Four children wounded in knife attack in French Alps

June 8, 2023 Daniel Abelous and Sylvie Maligorne

(AFP) A Syrian refugee armed with a knife stabbed four preschool children and injured two adults by a lake in the French Alps on Thursday in an attack whose motive remains unclear. The youngest victim in the quiet town of Annecy was […]

Yale blasted for hosting controversial French political activist accused of antisemitism during Passover

April 18, 2023 Joshua Rhett Miller

(NY Post) Yale University is being blasted for hosting a French academic accused of horrific anti-Semitism during Passover — defying Jewish groups who pleaded with the college to call off the lecture. The Ivy League college invited French-Algerian Houria Bouteldja to speak […]

Yale hosts Jew-hating, white-hating speaker on second night of Passover

April 17, 2023 Hank Berrien

(Daily Wire) Yale University hosted a virulently anti-Semitic and anti-white speaker on the second night of Passover, when Jews were celebrating the second Seder and thus couldn’t appear to protest. Houria Bouteldja, who has reportedly insisted that Jews “cultivated Nazism” and thus […]

Toulouse and the birth of modern jihadism The attack exposed the myth of the lone wolf

March 20, 2023 Liam Duffy

(UnHerd) When two young men embellish a Toulouse FC replica shirt with the name of the city’s most notorious mass murderer, is it just a sick and provocative gag, or evidence of sympathy for the killer’s worldview? Earlier this month, the French […]

French court sentences imam for antisemitic sermon following appeal

May 31, 2022 Ben Cohen

(Algemeiner) The imam of a mosque in the French city of Toulouse has been found guilty in appeal of “inciting violence and racial hatred” for a sermon he delivered in 2017 in which he talked about killing Jews. The sermon delivered by […]

Pain endures for French Jews a decade after Toulouse shootings

March 20, 2022 Amanda Morrow

(Radio France) Ten years after France was rocked by a series of Islamist shootings targeting Jewish children and French soldiers, President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday joined two of his predecessors — Nicolas Sarkozy and François Holland[e] — along with Israeli President Isaac […]

French presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse denounces antisemitism on 10th anniversary of deadly attack at Toulouse Jewish school

March 18, 2022 Unlisted Author

(Algemeiner) French presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse on Friday visited the Jewish school in [the] southern city of Toulouse that 10 years ago was [the] site of a deadly Islamist terror attack that took the lives of a teacher and three small children. […]

French imam recounts death threats from Islamists for asking to respect Holocaust In emotional TV interview, Hassen Chalghoumi says his family has been assaulted, harassed for years over his interfaith work

January 29, 2022 Unlisted Author

(Times of Israel) A French imam known for his involvement in interfaith initiatives said he and his family have been living under threat from Islamists for years, emotionally recalling the toll the assaults and harassment have taken. In an interview with France […]

Murderer of elderly French Jewish woman gets life sentence

November 10, 2021 Anne Sophie Labadie

(AFP) A French court on Wednesday sentenced the killer of an elderly Jewish woman to life imprisonment, with no possibility of parole for 22 years, over the 2018 murder which caused an outcry over anti-Semitism in France. Yacine Mihoub was convicted of […]

History lessons to help us understand the brutality of modern jihadism

November 10, 2021 Michael Fitzpatrick

(Radio France) There was yet another dramatic shift in the emotional temperature at the Paris attacks trial on Tuesday, as two anonymous and invisible police investigators gave lectures on the history of Islamic holy war and the Syrian context of the 2015 […]

Trial opens over murder of elderly Jewish French woman

October 26, 2021 Marie Dhumieres

(AFP) Two men went on trial on Tuesday over the 2018 murder of an elderly Jewish woman that provoked protests and alarm in France about anti-Semitic crime. The partly burned body of Mireille Knoll, 85, was found in her apartment in central […]

Suspected Tunisian terrorist on the run from French psychiatric centre caught in Italy Man is being investigated for condoning terrorism and aggravated threats

July 16, 2021 Nicky Harley

(National-UAE) Police in Italy have arrested a suspected terrorist who has been on the run since escaping from a psychiatric facility in France. He has been under investigation in France for allegedly condoning the actions of ISIS fanatic Mohamed Merah, who killed […]

Far-left French presidential candidate suggests Toulouse Jewish school murders were part of elections conspiracy

June 8, 2021 Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) A far-left politician who won 19% of the votes in France’s last presidential race and is running again next year suggested that a jihadist’s 2012 murder of four Jews in Toulouse was part of an elections conspiracy. “You’ll see that on […]

At the Sarah Halimi rally in Paris, I saw signs that French Jewry is nearing a breaking point

April 29, 2021 Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) Joining the stream of people converging on Trocadero Square, I soon realized that this event would be significantly different from the dozens of Jewish community gatherings I had attended in France. The atmosphere, rhetoric, symbolism and attendance at the “Justice for […]

Thousands protest in France over no trial for Jewish woman’s killer

April 25, 2021 Unlisted Author

(AFP) Thousands of protesters gathered in several French cities and Israel on Sunday to denounce a court’s refusal of a trial for a man who killed a 65-year-old Jewish woman, after experts determined he acted in a “delirious fit” due to heavy […]

Israel blasts French ruling keeping Sarah Halimi’s killer from trial Calling the murder ‘despicable,’ Foreign Ministry says court judgment fails to convey attitude of zero tolerance toward anti-Semitism

April 21, 2021 Lazar Berman

(Times of Israel) Israel blasted on Tuesday the ruling by France’s highest court that the murderer of Sarah Halimi was not criminally responsible because he had smoked marijuana before the crime. “Sarah Halimi was murdered for clearly anti-Semitic motivations, for the sole […]

Macron urges law change after Jewish woman’s killer avoids trial

April 19, 2021 Unlisted Author

(AFP) President Emmanuel Macron urged a change in French law after a man who murdered a Jewish woman in 2017 avoided a trial on the grounds he acted in delirium due to drug-taking, in an interview published Monday. Jewish groups have reacted […]

To fight terrorism, a German imam makes daily trek to prison

March 23, 2021 Isabelle de Pommereau

(Christian Science Monitor) As Imam Husamuddin Meyer walks through this old city of cobblestone streets and classical architecture in central Germany, many young people pass by and wave to him as though he were a YouTube star. Clad in a turban, the […]

French Jews mark anniversary of 2012 attack that killed rabbi, three children at Toulouse Jewish school

March 19, 2021 Unlisted Author

(Algemeiner) French Jews commemorated on Friday victims of the horrific 2012 shooting attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, which took place during a days-long killing spree that claimed the lives of seven people. On March 19, 2012, Islamist terrorist Mohamed […]

French Jews remember anniversary of 2012 terror attacks that culminated in massacre at Jewish school

March 12, 2021 Unlisted Author

(Algemeiner) France on Thursday began commemorations for the ninth anniversary of a devastating Islamist terror spree that claimed the lives of seven people, including three children at a Jewish school and two soldiers in the French army. The tributes to the victims […]

French imam will be prosecuted for antisemitic sermon at mosque in Toulouse

January 5, 2021 Unlisted Author

(Algemeiner) A French imam is to be prosecuted for racial hatred over a sermon he delivered in 2017 calling for Muslims to “fight the Jews.” Algerian-born Mohamed Tatai was indicted at the end of 2018 for “public verbal provocation to hatred or […]

France Islam: Muslims under pressure to sign French values charter

December 1, 2020 Lucy Williamson

(BBC) France’s Muslim Council is due to meet President Emmanuel Macron this week, to confirm the text of a new “charter of republican values” for imams in the country to sign. The Council (CFCM), which represents nine separate Muslim associations, has reportedly […]

Paris trial grills ‘repentant’ jihadist who mentored Charlie Hebdo killers

October 5, 2020 Benjamin Dodman

(France 24) After weeks of harrowing accounts of the shootings and the enduring trauma for survivors, the trial of the January 2015 Paris attacks took a step back at the weekend to hear testimony from Farid Benyettou, a self-taught preacher whose quest […]

Judges rebuke Macron for criticism over case of murdered Jewish woman

January 27, 2020 Sofia Bouderbala and Clare Byrne

(AFP) French President Emmanuel Macron drew a sharp rebuke from the country’s top magistrates on Monday for criticising a court ruling on the 2017 murder of a Jewish woman in Paris. Sarah Halimi, an Orthodox Jewish woman in her sixties, died after […]

The challenges of French jihadism are ‘ahead of us, not behind,’ says French author

January 24, 2020 Alison Hird

(Radio France) Since the fall of the self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq in October 2019, the threat of mass terror attacks has waned. But a new book shows home-grown French jihadists still pose a threat as they seek to reconfigure themselves […]

Mother of Merah victim files complaint over anti-Semitic graffiti

June 11, 2019 Unlisted Author

(Radio France) Latifa Ibn Ziaten, the mother of one of the seven victims of Mohamed Merah, woke up on Monday morning to discover death threats and anti-Semitic graffiti glorifying the French jihadist on the walls of her home near Rouen. She has […]

Trial over France Charlie Hebdo attacks to begin in April

June 7, 2019 Nathalie Alonso and Stuart Williams

(AFP) Fourteen suspects will go on trial before a special court in Paris in April 2020 charged over attacks around the French capital in January 2015, including the massacre at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, legal sources said on Friday. […]

French Jews say officials are reluctant to call out anti-Semitism by Muslims

May 1, 2019 Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) For most of his adult life, Sammy Ghozlan has worked with French authorities fighting crime. Ghozlan, 75, started as a police officer, ascending through the ranks to become a police commissioner in the Paris area. And since 2002 he has headed […]

French court jails brother of jihadist killer for 30 years

April 18, 2019 Unlisted Author

(AFP) A Paris appeal court on Thursday handed a 30-year jail term to Abdelkader Merah, brother of a French jihadist who shot dead seven people, finding him guilty of being an accomplice in the 2012 murders. The verdict was received in silence […]

‘Heir of Mohamed Merah’: French cops arrest terror suspect inspired by Islamist behind Jewish school massacre in Toulouse

April 3, 2019 Ben Cohen

(Algemeiner) French media outlets revealed on Wednesday that a man who described himself as the “heir of Mohamed Merah” — the Islamist terrorist who murdered three young children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse in March 2012 — was arrested […]

Wary hope for French families awaiting returns from Syria

February 10, 2019 Catherine Boitard and Emmanuel Duparcq

(AFP) After years of waiting for his son to come home from Syria, Jacques Le Brun is cautiously hoping that day may be nearing — along with the chance to meet three grandchildren who have never seen France. “He’ll certainly go to prison, […]

Alleged Brussels museum killer was ‘sadistic’ Syria jailer

February 7, 2019 Matthieu Demeestere

(AFP) Two French journalists on Thursday told a terrorism trial in Brussels that they had “no doubt” the accused Jewish museum killer is the man who imprisoned and tortured them in Syria. The former hostages came to Brussels to testify against Mehdi […]

Radicalised in jail, teen thug becomes hardened jihadist

January 6, 2019 Matthieu Demeestere

(AFP) Mehdi Nemmouche stands accused of carrying out Europe’s first attack by an Islamist fighter returning from the war in Syria. But his journey from a French foster home to a Brussels court began not in a Middle Eastern desert but in […]