Some French media ban IDs of attackers to stop “hero” effect

It also emerged Abdelmalik Petitjean was put on the terrorist watch list on June 29th after trying to get to the Isis caliphate in Syria via Turkey and that the beleaguered French intelligence services received a warning that an Islamic State terrorist was preparing to strike four days before he murdered a Roman Catholic priest.

I sometimes went to pray in his church, even though I’m a muslim. A copy of the Syrian’s passport was found at Kermiche’s family home, a police source said.

Speaking to Le Monde newspaper, Valls said that France needs to re-think its relationship with Islam.

He also called on imams to be trained in France – a proposal echoed by Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, earlier this week.

After killing the priest, the two took nuns hostage and attempted to use them as human shields as a police task force descended on the church.

It came less than a fortnight after the Nice attack, when a Tunisian man killed 84 persons and injured over 300 when he ploughed a lorry into crowds celebrating Bastille Day.

In the government’s first admission of a lapse since the two attacks, Valls acknowledged Kermiche’s liberty was a “failure, it has to be recognised”, adding that judges needed to take a “different, case-by-case, approach, given the jihadists’ very advanced concealment methods”.

The Prime Minister stressed, however, that the judges in this individual case should not be held responsible for this “act of terrorism”.

Amaq, Daesh’s news agency, released a two-minute video on Thursday purportedly made by Petitjean before the Normandy incident, encouraging others to conduct further attacks.

One of the attackers – Adel Kermiche – was supposed to be under tight surveillance after two attempts to reach Syria.

Muslims around the world are critical of the French government for many policies they deem to be anti-Muslim, like the ban of head scarves in schools, and veils in public.

Petitjean, whose face was disfigured after being shot dead by police, had been harder to identify than his accomplice Adel Kermiche, also 19, and investigators confirmed his identity after a DNA match with his mother. “We will destroy this country and raise the flag of religion and the word Allah”.

A French policeman stands guard as people attend a mass to pay tribute to French priest Father Jacques Hamel at the Cathedral in Rouen in Normandy, France, July 27, 2016.

French President Francois Hollande aimed to ease tensions between the nation’s religious communities the day after the attack, which he called a “cowardly assassination“.

But Petitjean’s sister and a friend were released after police said they were not implicated.

In the video both men pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.