Religious hate has no place in France, says Macron after Muslim killed in mosque

La Grand Combe, France: There can never be a place for racism and hate in France, President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday after the brutal stabbing t...

La Grand-Combe, France: There can never be a place for racism and hate in France, President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday after the brutal stabbing to death of a Muslim in a mosque in the south of the country.

"Racism and hatred based on religion can have no place in France. Freedom of worship cannot be violated," Macron wrote on X in his first comments on Friday's killing, extending his support to "our fellow Muslim citizens".

The attacker, who is on the run, stabbed Aboubakar Cisse, a young Malian in his early 20s dozens of times and then filmed him with a mobile phone while shouting insults at Islam in Friday's attack in the village of La Grand-Combe in the Gard region.

French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou had already denounced what he described as an "Islamophobic atrocity" although the prosecutor in the case has emphasised that Islamophobia is just one of the motives being considered.

Around 1,000 people on Sunday marched through La Grand Combe, which has just 5,000 inhabitants, to remember the victim.