French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is meeting Tuesday with the Tunisian ambassador to France following the murder of a Tunisian man by one of his neighbours at the weekend that is being investigated by anti-terrorism police as a hate crime.
The man who killed Hichem Iraoui Saturday in the Var department in southern France “posted two videos on his social networking account with racist and hateful content before and after his murder”, the public prosecutor of Draguignan, Pierre Couttenier, told the AFP news agency Sunday.
The suspect, who was apprehended in his car full of weapons, was being interviewed Monday by the national anti-terrorist police, which took over the investigation and are considering a race-based motive.
The man, who is French, is suspected of shooting dead Miraoui and injuring another man, of Turkish nationality.
‘Racist crime’
Retailleau said Monday that this was a “racist crime, given the evidence we currently have”, adding that “racism in France and elsewhere is a poison, and a poison that kills. Every racist act is an anti-French act”.
He was meeting the Tunisian ambassador Tuesday morning.
In a phone call with Retailleau, Tunisian Interior Minister Khaled Nouri insisted on ‘the need to ensure the protection of the Tunisian community on French territory”, according to a statement posted on the ministry’s Facebook page.
He also called on the French Interior Minister to “adopt a proactive approach to prevent such crimes and ensure that they do not happen again’.
Many on the left regularly accuse Retailleau of racism for targeting immigrants and Muslims.
(with newswires)
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