FRANCE/FILE: Israel's Netanyahu set to visit Toulouse school where Jewish children were gunned down

Record ID: 872575

  • Title: FRANCE/FILE: Israel's Netanyahu set to visit Toulouse school where Jewish children were gunned down
  • Date: 31st October 2012
  • Summary: TOULOUSE, FRANCE (MARCH 19, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DISTRAUGHT FAMILIES ARRIVING AT SCHOOL SCHOOL CHILDRENS' FAMILIES AT THE SCENE
  • Embargoed: 15th November 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • City:
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Crime,International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9G1BO2DWFT4AWWCVBPAE06R3
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to visit the school in Toulouse, southwestern France where an al-Qaeda-inspired gunman killed four people in March, amid tight security.
    Security was stepped up on Wednesday (October 31) ahead of a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a school in Toulouse in southwestern France where Mohamed Merah, an al-Qaeda-inspired gunman killed four people in March.
    Netanyahu will be accompanied by French President Francois Hollande, where the two leaders will pay homage to the victims of the attack.
    A neighbour of Merah's vicinity said she believed the visit was mainly for the media.

    "Netanyahu, that's all about Israel today and it's about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Merah case is something else. So to me it seems like an event that is for the media rather than political," said Virginie Deffesses.
    At a joint news conference with Netanyahu in Paris earlier on Wednesday, Hollande said the ceremony at the school would be a demonstration of France's efforts in its fight against anti-semitism.

    "I noted the message that the Israeli Prime Minister addressed to me, about what we are doing to fight against anti-semitism here and we will demonstrate that tomorrow by visiting the school that was martyred, to recall the memory of those four people who are dead, killed in a terrorist attack," Hollande said.
    Merah who killed seven people in March including three Jewish children at the Toulouse school, died in a hail of police bullets jumping through the window of his apartment after a 30-hour siege on March 22.
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