French President François Hollande insisted Thursday that any anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic acts would be be “severely punished,” as he sought to calm rising social tension after his country’s bloodiest terrorist attacks in decades.
“Anti-Muslim acts, like anti-Semitism, should not just be denounced but severely punished,” Hollandesaid Thursday at the Arab World Institute in Paris.
Noting that Muslims are the main victims of Islamic extremist violence, he said, “In the face of terrorism, we are all united.”
With 120,000 security forces deployed to prevent future attacks, France is tense after 17 people were killed in its capital in last week’s rampage carried out by three radical Muslim gunmen.
The three days of terror began on January 7 when two brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, massacred 12 people, including two policemen, at the headquarters of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The following day, another militant Islamist, Amédy Coulibaly, killed a policewoman on the outskirts of the capital. On January 9, Coulibaly stormed a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris, killing four people.
Commando units killed all three gunmen in twin assaults on Friday.
While the Kouachi brothers said they were financed by al Qaeda in Yemen, Coulibaly claimed allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group.
On Wednesday, a leader of Yemen’s al Qaeda branch officially claimed responsibility for the Kouachi brothers’ attack, saying in a video posted online that the slayings were committed in “vengeance for the prophet”, referring to cartoons of Prophet Mohammed created by Charlie Hebdo staff.
The Muslim faith forbids depictions of the prophet.
The attacks occurred in an atmosphere of rising anti-Semitism in France, and have prompted scattered attacks on Muslim sites around France in an apparent backlash. They have also put many French Muslims on the defensive.
Homegrown terrorism?
US and French intelligence officials are leaning toward an assessment that the Paris terror attacks were inspired by al Qaeda but not directly supervised by the group, a view that would put the violence in a category of homegrown incidents that are extremely difficult to detect and thwart.
In his speech, Hollande said that France’s millions of Muslims should be protected and respected, “just as they themselves should respect the nation” and its strictly secular values.
Earlier this week, French justice officials also began cracking down by arresting dozens of people who glorified terrorism or made racist or anti-Semitic remarks.
Hollande’s comments come on the same day that two of Charlie Hebdo’s best-known cartoonists – Georges Wolinski, 80, and Bernard "Tignous" Verlhac, 57 – were laid to rest in private family funerals.
Meanwhile in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday pledged to heighten security measures against militant Islamists and “hate-preachers”.
"Hate preachers, violent delinquents who act in the name of Islam, those behind them, and the intellectual arsonists of international terrorism will be rigorously fought with all legal means at the disposal of the state," she said in a speech to parliament.
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