Police rescued three other people inside the church – including a second nun – in the small northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, said Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.
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A local French official says police are surrounding a church in a suburb of Rouen, the capital of the Normandy region, after assailants seized hostages.
He said in a statement: “Where there are known risks, churches take measures to ensure the safety and security of worshippers and visitors”.
Mr Hollande gathered with the leaders of the country’s main religions a day after two attackers entered a church in the northern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during morning mass, and killed an 85-year-old priest.
One of the hostages, the 86-year-old wife of the man critically injured, said Wednesday the attackers had handed her husband identified only as Guy a cellphone and demanded that he take photos or video of the priest after he was slain.
France is on high alert and under a state of emergency after an attack in the southern city of Nice on Bastille Day – July 14 – that killed 84 people that was claimed by the Islamic State group, as well as a series of attacks previous year that killed 147 others around Paris. In addition, police detained a 16-year-old whom Molins said was the younger brother of a young man who travelled to the Syria-Iraq zone of the Islamic State group carrying Kermiche’s ID.
The terrorist group also released a video showing the two men pledging allegiance to the organization and its leader that was recorded prior to the attack.
In it, Kermiche identifies himself by the nom de guerre Abul Jaleel al-Hanafi, and says his compatriot, who has not been identified by French authorities, is called Ibn Omar.
He also said more of the country’s 10,000-strong Operation Sentinel anti-terror forces would be deployed to areas outside Paris following the Nice attack and the killing in Normandy.
Danielle then fled the church in a daring escape after which she was able to call police.
Said Aid Lahcen had met the slain priest in the past.
Kermiche’s tag did not send an alarm because the attack took place during the four hour period when he was allowed out.
According to the Hartford Courant, the elderly woman was only identified by her first name, Jeanine, when she relayed those particular details of the hostage situation to RMC Radio. “The terrorists held me with a revolver at my neck”.
One attacker, Adel Kermiche, had been flagged as a radicalized Islamist and was under house arrest at the time of the attack, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.
In light of what happened, a church leader who spoke under condition of anonymity told Christian Today (CT) that a trend similar to the French church attack is developing. Opposition politicians have responded to the attacks with strong criticism of the government’s security record, unlike previous year, when they made a show of unity after gunmen and bombers killed 130 people at Paris entertainment venues in November and attacked a satirical newspaper in January.
In St. -Étienne-du-Rouvray, young and old were stunned by the attack. He was still being questioned Wednesday.
At the meeting, which included Roman Catholic, Christian Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish leaders, Paris archbishop Cardinal André Vingt-Trois urged Catholics to “overcome hatred that comes in their heart”, telling journalists afterward, “We can not allow ourselves to be dragged into the politics of Daesh, which wants to set the children of the same family against each other”, referring to IS by it’s Arabic acronym.
“We can not allow ourselves to be dragged into the politics of Daech (Islamic State), which wants to set the children of the same family against each other”, the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, told journalists after the meeting at the Elysee presidential palace. He did not elaborate.
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Speaking on the papal plane en route to Krakow, Poland, for World Youth Day celebrations, Francis said the world had been in “a piecemeal war” for some time.
