President Erdogan accused of fuelling the anger that led to French terror attacks

The Turkish president’s bellicose rhetoric towards France over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed may have contributed to a climate of anger that led to the deadly terror attack in the city of Nice on Thursday, terrorism experts and EU politicians have said. A woman was decapitated, and two more people killed, in an attack in a church in Nice on Thursday that the city’s mayor described as terrorism after the alleged perpetrator reportedly chanted “Alllahu akbar” as he was arrested. Terrorism experts believe the attack – alongside a stabbing at the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and an incident in Avignon where police killed a man brandishing a gun – were retaliation by extremists for France’s hardening attitudes towards Muslims. French President Emmanuel Macron ordered a crackdown on Islamists this month, following the beheading of a teacher who showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, something many Muslims consider blasphemous and offensive. Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdogan has led criticism in the Muslim world of Mr Macron, repeatedly saying he needed mental evaluation over his stance towards Islam.

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