An Algerian illegal immigrant who shouted “Allah is great!” in a French Roman Catholic cathedral while carrying a knife last Sunday is said to have had multiple orders to leave the country since 2014.
The Algerian was spotted in the Cathedral of Metz on Sunday morning just prior to the 8 am mass and the local priest attempted to greet him but the man simply replied to him “Allah is great.”
The priest, fearing that the man was intoxicated and that the situation may get out of hand, called the police after the encounter. The man stayed quiet at the back of the cathedral before police arrived, found he was carrying a knife, and took him into custody, the newspaper Valeurs Actuelles reports.
The Algerian was later identified as 47-year-old Keddam R., an illegal immigrant already known to the police who had originally come to France and obtained residency as the spouse of a French national in 2001, but in 2014 his residency was not renewed.
Despite this, the Algerian remained in France and was given an order to live the country in 2017 and a second order to leave in 2020, followed by house arrest and a ban on returning to France. an additional deportation order was issued earlier this week on May 10th.
The Cathedral incident is not the only such conflation of Catholicism in France, knive,s and cries of Allahu Akhbar in recent days. On Tuesday evening a man armed with a knife, also referring to Allah, stabbed a man in front of a Catholic college in Marseille, French media reports.
The suspect, a 23-year-old, allegedly yelled that he was acting “in the name of Allah” after being subdued following the attack, which saw the victim, a father who had arrived to pick up his children from school, stabbed several times in the throat and over his body.
At the time of writing, investigators have not considered the attack may be terrorism-related and ordered the 23-year-old to undertake a psychological evaluation.
Indeed, these latest attacks are just two of the many involving knifemen yelling references to “Allah” in France in recent months.
Last week, a man in Tarn yelling “Allahu Akbar” attacked and injured five police officers after exhibiting threatening behaviour and smashing cars outside of a local mosque.
Islamist attacks on French churches are still a major security concern as well, particularly since the 2020 Nice terrorist attack which saw three people murdered by a Tunisian illegal immigrant in the city’s Notre-Dame de Nice Basilica, and the 2016 murder of a Catholic priest as he said mas in 2016.
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