Islamists have declared war on France, Jewish community leader says following fatal church stabbings

Image by Getty Images
Islamists have declared war on France, a senior leader of French Jews said following multiple assaults, including the murder of three people at a church in Nice.
Gil Taieb, the vice president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, made the comments Thursday in reference to the beheading of one woman and the fatal stabbing of two others outside the Notre Dame church of the Mediterranean coastal city.
The perpetrator was shouting “Allah hu akbar” — Arabic for Allah is the greatest — before he was shot and rushed to the hospital, Le Monde reported.
Also on Thursday, another man shouting about Allah attempted to stab police officers in Avignon, another southern French city situated about 120 miles west of Nice. He was shot and died from his wounds, Europe1 reported. Initial reports did not say whether authorities believe the incidents are linked.
“The Islamists are waging war against us!” Taieb wrote on Twitter. “We stand united against Islamist barbarism.”
The incidents followed protests across the Muslim world against a plan of action against radical Islam being pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron. It includes banning home schooling to eliminate underground Islamist schools and limiting foreign funding for houses of worship, Macron said.
Separately, violence broke out on Wednesday in at least three suburbs of the city of Lyon, situated about 120 miles north of Avignon. Hundreds of young men of Turkish origin assaulted residents of suburbs with a large Armenian population, France Bleu reported.
The clashes were connected to the deadly fighting between Azerbaijan, a Muslim-majority nation whose residents have cultural and language ties to Turkey, and Armenia.
CRIF condemned the perpetrators of those assaults and said on Twitter that perceived incitement by Turkish President Recep Tayyp Erdogan had a role in it. Erdogan has said that Macron needs “mental treatment” and evoked the Holocaust to condemn Macron’s anti-Islamist plan.
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.
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.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Think every Palestinian in Gaza is Hamas? This week’s protests prove you’re wrong
-
Opinion A Palestinian Oscar-winner’s arrest shocked the world. For these Jewish activists, it was terrifyingly normal
-
Opinion In the Trump administration and Israel, a grotesque display of virility coupled with a loss of humanity
-
Fast Forward Cornell’s new Jewish president says he is ‘very comfortable with where Cornell is currently’
-
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.