Rabat – Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has confirmed that the killing of a man at the Grande-Combe mosque on Friday was an Islamophobic attack.
“The vile act of Islamophobia was displayed in a video,” Bayrou said on X on Saturday, expressing solidarity with the victim’s family and the local community.
“State resources have been mobilized to ensure the killer is captured and punished,” he pledged.
Bayrou’s statement came as a manhunt continued to arrest the suspect, who stabbed the victim 40 to 50 times inside the mosque at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.
The perpetrator pretended to be a mosque goer when he attacked the Muslim man who was praying.
Mosque goers discovered the body of the victim around 11:30 a.m. when they were flocking to the mosque for the Friday noon prayer.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, president of the leftist party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) and longtime supporter of minority rights, once again criticized what he appeared to describe as the alarming normalization of racist and rightwing discourse and attitude in France. “Islamophobia kills. All those who contribute to it are guilty,” he said.
AFP quoted a source close to the case as saying that the suspect, who is still on the run, stabbed the young man dozens of times and filmed his dying victim with his phone.
“I did it,” he said twice,” before making insulting remarks on God and Islam.
The perpetrator also reportedly expressed intent to kill again.
France has been marred by several similar Islamophobic acts, including discriminatory measures that bar women and girls who choose to wear the hijab.
Muslim communities also face racist and Islamophobic attacks in many cities across France, including offensive campaigns on social media and acts of vandalism targeting mosques, cemeteries, and Muslim-run businesses.
