Manhunt for killer temporarily calms a heated election campaign
As police comb the south of France looking for the gunman who opened fire outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, killing four people on Monday, French authorities now say the killer may have filmed the attack.
France’s interior minister, Claude Guéant, said on Tuesday that little is known about the killer or his whereabouts despite the manhunt. Guéant said that security cameras from the school showed what appeared to be a video camera attached to the man’s chest as he went about his killing spree.
The killing of three children and a teacher at a school has outraged France and may temporarily quiet divisive rhetoric over immigration in the country, especially in the south.
France is in the middle of national election campaign where religion and immigration have become a focal point of discussion, in which incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy has said that France had “too many immigrants” and that halal meat is the issue that “most preoccupies the French.” The latter move united Jews and Muslims after Sarkozy’s prime minister added kosher meat into the mix of outdated “ancient traditions”.