The church attack came less than two weeks after an attack by a man barreling his truck down a pedestrian zone in Nice, on the Riviera, that killed 84 people celebrating France’s national day.
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The two men entered the 16th-century stone church in the town wielding knives as Rev. Jacques Hamel, the parish’s 85- year-old auxiliary priest, celebrated Mass. Taking the priest hostage, along with three nuns and two parishioners, the attackers conducted a “sort of sermon around the altar in Arabic”, one nun told French TV, forcing Father Hamel to kneel before cutting his throat.
A source close to the investigation said Petitjean was not known to French security services until a tip-off from Turkish authorities.
Petitjean, whose face was disfigured after being shot dead by police, had been harder to identify than his accomplice Adel Kermiche, also 19, and investigators confirmed his identity after a DNA match with his mother.
The brutality of the attack in the Rouen, in northern France, has left Europe stunned and fearful as it comes in the wake of a series of assaults in France and Germany, claimed by attackers who say they were acting in the name of the Islamic State group.
A cousin of Petitjean and a minor arrested just after the attack were being questioned along with the Syrian.
A second tip-off from an unidentified foreign intelligence source led to the French authorities circulating a photo to its security agencies on July 22 of a man believed to be planning an attack.
The rector of the main Paris mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, said France’s Muslims must push for better training of Muslim clerics and urged that reforming French Muslim institutions be put on the agenda.
Pope Francis said “the world is at war” but argued that religion was not the cause. “The others want war”.
When he heard about the church attack, “I knew it was him, I was sure”, the young man told the AP, identifying himself only as Redwan. “We are going to destroy this country, we will raise the flag and we will elevate the word of Allah”.
Candles were set in front of the town hall, and stunned townsfolk were calling for the kind of unity Hollande is seeking.
“We are scared”, said Mulas Arbanu. “Be we Christians, Muslims, anything, we have to be together”.
Another resident, Said Aid Lahcen, had met the slain priest.
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The mass came after a meeting earlier in the day between Hollande and top religious leaders who warned French people against being drawn in by IS efforts to pit different believers against each other. “We must not get into divergences, but stay united as we were before”, he said. However no direct link has been found. Security fears meant a march for the Nice victims planned on Sunday, as well as another in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray due to be held on Thursday were cancelled.
