President Macron Condemns Stabbing of Muslim in French Mosque

April 28, 2025 | 04:44 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - French President Emmanuel Macron has condemned the stabbing of a Muslim worshipper in a mosque in southern France, emphasizing that racism and hatred will never have a place in France.

"Racism and hatred based on religion can have no place in France. Freedom of worship cannot be violated," Macron expressed his support for Muslim citizens in France in a post on X, addressing the incident that occurred on Friday, April 26, 2025, as reported by France 24.

The attack involved a mosque-goer being stabbed multiple times by an assailant who filmed the assault with a mobile phone while shouting anti-Islamic insults in La Grand-Combe, a village in the Gard region.   

French Prime Minister François Bayrou denounced the crime as an act of Islamophobia. The perpetrator reportedly sent a video of the victim in distress to others, which was then shared on social media before being removed.   

According to a source close to the investigation, the suspect is a French citizen of Bosnian origin, not a Muslim. The victim was a young man from Mali in his twenties. The two were alone inside the mosque at the time of the incident.   

The suspect, after initially praying alongside the victim, proceeded to stab him up to 50 times before fleeing. The victim's body was discovered the following morning by other worshippers arriving for Friday prayers.   

Following the murder, protests against Islamophobia took place in Paris on Sunday night, April 27, 2025. The French Council of Muslim Religion (CFCM) expressed that the anti-Muslim terrorist attack has instilled fear within the Muslim community and urged Muslims in France to remain highly vigilant.

The attacker is identified only as Olivier, born in France in 2004, who is unemployed and has no prior criminal record. Regional prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini described him as dangerous.   

The French prosecutor announced on Monday, April 28, 2025, that the perpetrator had surrendered to the police in Italy. "This is very satisfying for me as a prosecutor. Faced with the effectiveness of the measures put in place, the suspect had no option but to hand himself in – and that is the best thing he could have done," stated Grini, the prosecutor in the southern city of Alès handling the case.

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