French
interior minister under fire for slow response to deadly mosque stabbing
Bruno
Retailleau attended campaign events before traveling to the scene of the crime.
April 30,
2025 4:00 am CET
By Victor
Goury-Laffont
https://www.politico.eu/article/french-interior-minister-slow-response-deadly-mosque-stabbing/
PARIS —
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is taking heat for what critics say
was a slow response to the killing of a man who appeared to be targeted for his
Muslim faith.
Aboubakar
Cissé, a 23-year-old Malian, died after being stabbed dozens of times on Friday
while worshiping at a mosque in southern France. The local prosecutor said that
the attacker had filmed the stabbing, during which he shouted “I did it … your
shitty Allah,” multiple French media outlets reported.
Retailleau,
a popular right-wing politician who is running to lead France’s conservative
political party Les Républicains, responded on X about six hours hours later to
express “solidarity with the Muslim community.”
He attended
two campaign events over the weekend and only then traveled to meet with local
investigators and religious leaders in La Grande-Combe on Sunday.
Retailleau
has been quicker to visit the sites of other violent attacks after they
occurred. Less than a day before Friday’s mosque attack in La Grande-Combe, for
example, he went to Nantes after a high school student fatally stabbed a
15-year-old classmate and wounded others. That attack took place around noon;
Retailleau was on site within seven hours.
The interior
minister defended his delayed visit to the site of the attack on the Muslim man
by citing the ongoing investigation and lingering uncertainties surrounding the
case. On Tuesday, he hit back at those criticizing him for turning tragedies
into political grist.
“I do not
accept that such serious and painful issues should be exploited by parties or
associations that profit from a family’s misfortune. These methods are
shameful, and I will not allow myself to be intimidated or exploited,” he said
on X.
The
minister’s critics, however, say the lack of urgency points to a
double-standard — a claim that government spokesperson Sophie Primas tried to
bat down at a press conference on Monday — especially considering how quickly
Retailleau traveled to the scene during a recent stabbing that President
Emmanuel Macron had described as an act of “Islamist terrorism.”
That
stabbing, which was committed by an Algerian national who was described as
having a “schizophrenic profile,” took place at 3:40 p.m. The interior
minister’s trip to the site of the attack was confirmed less than two hours
later.
“When you
see the time it took for the Interior Minister to respond … it gives the
impression that French people of the Muslim faith have no place in our
country,” said Ludovic Mendes, a National Assembly member from Macron’s
centrist group who recently authored a report on Islamophobia in France.
Retailleau’s
detractors add that his fiery remarks criticizing Muslim headscarves — he
shouted “down with the veil” at a recent rally — fuel what Mendes describes as
“ordinary racism” in France at a time when official statistics show that
anti-Muslim hate crimes are rising. Reports of such incidents were up 72
percent from January through March this year compared with the same period in
2024, according to interior ministry figures.
Retailleau
also was criticized from within his own political camp. Xavier Bertrand, the
conservative president of the northern Hauts-de-France region and a supporter
of Retailleau’s party leadership run, told BFMTV he was “firmly convinced” that
the interior minister should have visited the attack site “straight away.”
“When a man
is savagely murdered in France because he is a Muslim, we have to fight that …
our outrage cannot depend on the circumstances,” Bertrand said.
The
suspected attacker fled the scene and remained at large for three days before
surrendering to authorities in Italy on Monday. Prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini said
that while hate was considered the most likely motive, other scenarios are
still being examined.
The
assailant’s lawyer, speaking to reporters in Italy, said his client had not
“said anything against Islam or Mosque” and was “confused” by the accusation
that his acts were motivated by hate.
Elena
Giordano contributed to this report.
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