Netanyahu and Hollande To Tour Toulouse School
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Francois Hollande will together visit the Jewish school in Toulouse where three children and a rabbi were murdered.
“I am very proud to go tomorrow with you to Toulouse to give our common position against anti-Semitism, against extremism directed at Jews and non-Jews,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday at the Elysee Palace on his first state visit to France since Hollande was elected president earlier this year.
The two leaders spoke about Iran, Syria and peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, they said at a news conference. Netanyahu praised Hollande’s “strong position” against a nuclear Iran.
“We disagree on continued settlement building, but are aware of the fact that peace can only be achieved through negotiations which need to start a soon as possible,” Hollande told reporters. Netanyahu urged Hollande to arrange peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis.
Richard Prasquier, president of the CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish institutions, wrote in a statement that the joint visit by Netanyahu and Hollande to Toulouse “will be an exceptionally powerful and symbolic” statement about the shared destiny of those confronted with the “bestial hatred” of men like Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old jihadist who attacked the Jewish school in Toulouse on March 19.
In Toulouse, the two leaders will meet Samuel Sandler, the father of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler whom Merah murdered along with the rabbi’s two sons, Arieh, 5, and Gabriel, 4.
“I don’t expect much from the meeting,” Samuel Sandler told the radio network Europe 1 on Tuesday. “Seeing my son and grandchildren once more is the only thing I would hope for, and that’s not going to happen.”
Asked whether he wished to see the death of his family avenged, Sandler said: “No, not at all. Feeling angry won’t change anything. We need to talk to the people living in the suburbs,” a term often used to refer to Muslim immigrants living in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across country
-
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.