By Enyichukwu Enemanna
France has denounced the killing of a Tunisian national by his neighbour on Saturday in the town of Puget-sur-Argens, an incident authorities say must not go unpunished.
The Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, in a post on X on Monday, said that “racism must be severely punished” and that the shooting was “intolerable.”
Prosecutors, in a statement, said the victim was shot dead by his neighbour in the south of France, adding that the incident was being investigated as a racially motivated crime.
The victim, who was said to be “possibly 35,” has not been officially identified. A 25-year-old Turkish national was also shot in the hand by the shooter, whose nationality has not been revealed.
The incident comes barely one month after the fatal stabbing of a 22-year-old Malian national, Aboubakar Cisse, in a mosque in the southern town of La Grand-Combe, amid rising racism in France.
Critics of the Interior Minister have accused him of aiding the killings, citing his declarations on migration and Islam, which they say have contributed towards rising levels of hate crimes.
Official data published in March reveal that French police recorded an 11% rise in racist, xenophobic or anti-religious crimes last year.
Late Sunday, prosecutors, in a statement, said the suspect in the weekend shooting was a 53-year-old who practises sports shooting.
The statement added that he had published hateful and racist content on his social media account before and after killing his neighbour.
France has the largest Muslim population in Europe, numbering more than 6 million and making up about 10% of the country’s population.
President Emmanuel Macron and other politically exposed persons have attacked what they call Islamist separatism in a way that rights groups say stigmatises Muslims and amounts to discrimination.
