French Muslims express ‘anger, sadness’ after Nice attack

French Muslims reacted with horror at Thursday’s killing of three citizens in the seaside town of Nice, saying the crime is representative of neither their faith nor values.

The attack, which took place inside a church, is the third of its kind in a little over a month and comes amid heightened tensions between Muslim countries and France.

Several calls to boycott French goods were made last week after President Emmanuel Macron defended the right to caricature Prophet Muhammad.

Macron’s comments came after the brutal killing of Samuel Paty, a middle school teacher who showed his pupils drawings of the prophet during a discussion on free speech.

Yasser Louati, a French civil rights activist, said perpetrators of such crimes make no distinction between Muslims and Christians and subscribed to an ideology alien to Islam.

‘Sinking into madness’

Idriss Sihamedi, an activist whose prominent Barakacity charity was dissolved by authorities on Wednesday over allegations it incited hatred, denounced the knife attack.

“These attacks are serious, and the fact this is happening in places where people come to seek peace makes it doubly serious,” he said in a tweet.

“Support for the families of the victims, but also for the faithful. France is sinking into madness, hatred, anger, and revenge.”