FRANCE-SHOOTING/MALI HERO Malian who saved lives in Jewish deli attack gets French nationality

Record ID: 324359

  • Title: FRANCE-SHOOTING/MALI HERO Malian who saved lives in Jewish deli attack gets French nationality
  • Date: 15th January 2015
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (JANUARY 10, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SECURITY FORCES OUTSIDE KOSHER SUPERMARKET THE DAY AFTER THE INCIDENT
  • Embargoed: 30th January 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA9KD0AXSKP5LYMD8VNQUAMNATD
  • Story Text: A Malian Muslim who hid shoppers from an Islamist gunman during an attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris deserves French nationality for his courage, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told BFMTV on Thursday (January 15).
    After the gunman had already killed people during a hostage taking in the store on Friday, 24-year old shop attendant Lassana Bathily hid several people in the store's freezer, turned off the light and told them to stay calm.
    He then escaped to look for help. After initially being suspected of being an accomplice, he was able to tell police what was happening inside the store, where four Jewish hostages were killed before police shot gunman Amedy Coulibaly, a Frenchman of Malian origin.
    Bathily described his ordeal to BFMTV.
    "When I ran downstairs, I went to the freezers, several people came with me. I switched off the light. I switched off the freezers," Bathily said.
    "The people who were with me, one with a two months old baby, no two years. In the room, I pushed the women behind the door and told them: 'You stay here and stay calm, I will get out'," he added.
    "I come out running. I saw the policemen. They told me: 'Go on the floor, hands over your head'," he said.
    Bathily described how the people he had saved thanked him for his action.
    "When they came out they congratulated me, they told me 'Honestly, thank you for thinking (inaudible)'. I told them: 'It's nothing, such is life'," Bathily said.
    A petition had been going around France over the last week to give Bathily citizenship.
    On Thursday, the Interior Ministry said it had fast-tracked Bathily's request for citizenship following his "acts of bravery".
    "It was a symbolic action and for me it was obvious and the way this man behaved during the hostage taking, the way he protected people with a lot of courage, a cool head and great control, deserved some gratitude and some thanks," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
    "It will be a sober ceremony but it will be a beautiful ceremony."
    An official ceremony will be held on January 20.
    Last week, 17 people were killed in three days of violence that began with an attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly and ended with dual sieges at a print works outside Paris and the kosher supermarket.
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