The fatal stabbing of a Muslim worshiper in a mosque in France has prompted heated criticism of government officials who did not initially treat it as a possible hate crime or show the degree of concern they had in other fatal attacks.
The victim, Aboubakar Cissé, a 21 year-old from Mali, was stabbed dozens of times Friday morning while he was praying in a mosque in La Grand-Combe, a small town in southern France, about 50 miles northwest of Avignon.
The main suspect, who filmed himself standing over the victim, was heard insulting Allah in the video, which was posted on Snapchat, French news media reported.
A local prosecutor at first suggested — wrongly, it emerged — that the killing had stemmed from a dispute between two worshipers. But on Sunday, that prosecutor, Abdelkrim Grini, said in a TV interview that the killing was being investigated as an “anti-Muslim act” or “an act with Islamophobic connotations.” Other motives are being explored, he added, including “a fascination with death, a desire to kill and a desire to be considered a serial killer.”
The suspect fled to Italy before turning himself in on Sunday at a police station in Pistoia, a small town near Florence, Cécile Gensac, the Nîmes prosecutor, said on Monday. The suspect was identified as a French national of Bosnian origin, born in 2004, who was previously unknown to the police, but nothing else about him or his views has been made public.
He has not yet been returned to France, which a prosecutor said could take weeks, or charged with a crime.
“It’s an Islamophobic crime, it’s an act of terrorism, and today we are afraid,” Aminata Konaté-Boune, a spokesperson for Mr. Cissé’s Soninke ethnic group, said at a news conference with the victim’s family on Tuesday. “Tomorrow, what will happen? Will they come knocking on our doors to kill us? Will there be a hunt for Muslims?”
The killing happened the day after a girl was stabbed to death at a high school in Nantes, allegedly by another student who was fascinated with Hitler. The school attack, which also wounded three others, prompted a strong and swift government reaction, prompting critics to accuse the government of a double standard.
Bruno Retailleau, France’s conservative interior minister, posted a message on social media on the day of the attack at the mosque expressing support for the victim’s family and the Muslim community.
But unlike in Nantes, where he visited the crime scene hours after the attack, he did not immediately rush to the mosque. Instead, he traveled on Sunday to Alès, a nearby town, where he met with the local prosecutor and mayors.
President Emmanuel Macron of France did not comment on the attack until Sunday. “I extend the support of the nation to his family and to our fellow citizens of the Muslim faith,” he said on social media. “Racism and hatred based on religion will never have a place in France. Freedom of worship is inviolable.”
Yoro Cissé, the victim’s cousin, told the news agency Agence France-Presse on Tuesday that no member of the government had contacted his family. “We want to feel safe; France is a country we love,” he said. “We want to feel like everybody else.”
Ten percent of France’s population is Muslim, according to a 2023 study by the National Statistics Institute. Islam has grown, at a time when more people profess no religious affiliation, to become the country’s second-largest faith.
France, which upholds its own brand of secularism known as “laïcité” — guaranteeing freedom of conscience and the neutrality of the state and of some public spaces — has an uneasy relationship with Islam. Muslim clothing like headscarves and full-length robes have stirred endless debate and various attempts to ban them.
“The least we can say is that the authorities were slow to react,” to the mosque killing, said Hakim El Karoui, a Muslim business consultant and the author of the book “Islam, a French Religion.” “Being on the side of Muslims is not popular when you are a politician in France.”
About 1,000 people marched silently in La Grand-Combe on Sunday to honor Mr. Cissé’s memory. But some deplored the absence of politicians, French news media reported.
Another demonstration was organized the same day at the Place de la République in Paris at the behest of left-wing politicians and associations.
“This violence is the result of an Islamophobic climate that has been cultivated for months,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the leftist France Unbowed party, during the protest. That the interior minister did not rush to visit the mosque was “incomprehensible,” he added.
On Tuesday, Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the National Assembly, held a minute of silence for Mr. Cissé in the lower house, though she said top lawmakers had not reached an agreement to do so.
Djibril Cissé, the victim’s uncle, said that he had been shocked by the news coverage of his nephew’s death and by the reactions of politicians.
“He was a sociable person who was a source of hope for all of us,” he said.
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris.