The Toulouse killings

Murders in the Midi-Pyrénées

A ghastly killing spree interrupts the presidential campaign

Mar 24th 2012 | PARIS | from the print edition

The Economist

AFTER a 32-hour siege, in which a heavily armed police squad surrounded his house in Toulouse, Mohammed Merah, who is suspected of killing four adults and three children in a series of terror attacks in south-west France, died when police stormed the building on March 22nd. The news capped days of drama that rocked the country and—temporarily—put its presidential election campaign on hold.

The 23-year-old French national, who is of Algerian origin, is suspected of a killing spree, fleeing each time aboard a motor scooter. In mid-March three paratroopers were shot dead, one in Toulouse, two others in Montauban, and a fourth was critically injured. All the dead were French of north African origin. And all came from parachute regiments that have served in Afghanistan. On March 19th the killer struck again: as parents dropped off children at a Jewish school in Toulouse, two young boys and their father, a Franco-Israeli rabbi, were shot dead, as was the daughter of the headmaster. The four bodies were flown to Israel for burial.

In France’s biggest manhunt in living memory, anti-terrorist police were sent from Paris, and thousands of policemen put on the case. Claude Guéant, the interior minister, raised the terrorist alert to its highest level. The suspect was finally tracked down because he had used his mother’s computer to connect to a website advertising the sale of the motor scooter, and via a garage where the gunman’s brother inquired about a tracking device.

Details are emerging about Mr Merah. He has been known to the French security services “for a long time”, said Mr Guéant, and spent time in jihadist training camps in tribal areas on the Pakistani-Afghan border, as well as in prison in France for petty crime. He told police negotiators that he belonged to al-Qaeda, and wanted to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and protest against French wars abroad, especially in Afghanistan, and the ban on the face-covering veils in public. He planned at least three more shootings.

Was he under close enough surveillance? Mr Guéant said that “nothing whatsoever” suggested he was planning an imminent attack. Yet the number of Frenchmen returning from al-Qaeda camps with such high-level training is only “in single digits” reckons François Heisbourg, of the French Institute for Strategic Research. Isolated French Muslims, radicalised in Islamist training camps, have been foiled trying to mount terror attacks in France before. One alleged terrorist was arrested near Lyon in 2009, and is still awaiting trial. Another was found guilty of plotting an attack in 2007 against a military base in Dieuze, in eastern France.

The murders have shaken the country, and monopolised the airwaves. President Nicolas Sarkozy called them a “national tragedy”. All schools held a minute’s silence. Most candidates suspended their campaigns. Politicians attended both a memorial service at a Paris synagogue, and a military funeral in Montauban. Alain Juppé, the foreign minister, accompanied the coffins of the four Jewish dead to Israel.

Once the candidates resume their campaigns, Mr Sarkozy may emerge strengthened. Having flown straight to Toulouse after the school shootings, he has done a skilful job of being statesmanlike and solemn, yet in touch with the national mood. His Socialist rival, François Hollande, has also sounded the right note, but from the shadows. Marine Le Pen, the far-right National Front candidate, may also benefit. She spoke out this week against confusing Muslims with fundamentalists, and denounced those who had at first accused her of being implicated for having fuelled racial divisions in France. “Putting real problems on the table in no way justifies the spread of Islamic fundamentalism,” she declared. The real issue, she added, was that such fundamentalism in France had been “underestimated”.