French Jews expressed their outrage over the murder of two police officers, a man and his wife, at their home near Paris by an Islamist.
Francis Kalifat, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, on Tuesday conveyed that sentiment, along with his solidarity with the family and security forces, on Twitter over the killing of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing near Paris the previous evening.
The assailant - 25-year-old Larossi Abballa - who lived near Salvaing, stabbed his first victim nine times as Salvaing was entering his home in Magnanville and then entered the police officer’s home, killing his wife, Jessica Salvaing, who was also a policewoman, and taking hostage their three-year-old son. Police freed the son and killed the assailant, who cried “Allah is the greatest” in Arabic before stabbing the husband, the French news agency AFP reported.
Abballa filmed the entire gruesome incident and streamed it live on his Facebook page.
Islamist websites associated with the Islamic State wrote that the assailant was a member of that terrorist group.
“I would like to express all forms of solidarity with the National Police and with the victims,” Kalifat wrote. “This barbarism must stop.”
Moche Lewin, the executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis, also expressed “solidarity” with French police in a post on his Twitter account.
Many French Jews regard attacks by Islamists and others on police and military as closely related to their own safety.
The Islamist who in 2012 murdered four Jews at a school in Toulouse gunned down three soldiers before he targeted the Jewish institution. The jihadist who murdered four people at a kosher shop in January 2015 also killed a police officer the previous day.
Following those attacks, approximately 12,000 military and police were posted outside Jewish institutions, where they are sometimes attacked. CRIF and other groups often stage gestures expressing their gratitude to security forces at community events, and regularly condemn attacks on them in the harshest terms.