Assailants loyal to Islamic State forced an elderly priest to his knees before slitting his throat and took several worshippers hostage in a French church on Tuesday before police shot the attackers dead.
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Speaking at the scene, Hollande called it a “dreadful terrorist attack”, adding that the attackers had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, the militant group that he said had declared war on France.
During the siege they killed a priest in his 80s by slitting his throat and seriously injured another captive.
The imam of the mosque in the northern French town where a church was attacked Tuesday said he was “stunned” by the murder of the local priest, who he described as a friend.
Sister Danielle, a nun who was in the church at the time, said priest Jaques Hamel, who was in his eighties, was wearing his white cloaks and was at the foot of the altar when “they forced him to get on his knees and not move”. He wanted to defend himself.
She said the attackers recorded themselves.
One of the other hostages was reportedly in critical condition and both assailants were reportedly killed by security forces.
“We are in a period where everything is possible; the worst is possible”, Georges Fenech, a conservative lawmaker who headed the parliamentary inquiry into the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, told BFMTV broadcaster.
Police then entered the church to search for explosives.
Isis issued a claim of responsibility minutes after Mr Hollande’s statement via its Amaq propaganda agency.
Sister Daniele escaped while they were attacking the priest.
“We are particularly shocked because this frightful violence took place in a church in which God’s love is announced”, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.
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. French police shot dead the two terrorists as the men left the church.
The attack has been claimed by Islamic State, which said the men were its “soldiers”. He was arrested in May 2015 and spent nearly a year in prison, before being released on March 2.
Anti-terror chiefs have been appointed to take charge of the investigation and have arrested one person in connection with the attack.
The canonization process is a lengthy one involving two miracles attributed to the person’s intercession, but in the case of a martyr only one miracle is needed, after beatification.
The Vatican condemned the “barbarous killing”, while the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, wrote on Twitter: “Evil attacks the weakest, denies truth and love, is defeated through Jesus Christ”.
Relations with France’s Muslim community have been especially tense since the Bastille Day massacre in Nice. France is also under a state of emergency and has extra police presence in the wake of the Nice attack in which a man barreled his truck down the city’s famed Promenade des Anglais, mowing down holiday crowds.
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In a statement, Vatican Spokesman Father Lombardi said, “the Pope has been informed and participates in the sorrow and horror of this absurd violence with a radical condemnation of every form of hate, and prayer for those affected”. “We are particularly shocked because this terrible violence took place in a church, in which God’s love is announced”, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.
