Muslims across France have attended Catholic Mass in a gesture of solidarity after the murder of a priest on Tuesday.
Fr Jacques Hamel was killed in his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen by two men who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
France’s Muslim council, the CFCM, urged Muslims to show “solidarity and compassion” over the murder.
“We are all Catholics of France,” said Anouar Kbibech, the head of the CFCM.
Services were held in Rouen as well as in Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral.
“We’re very touched,” the Archbishop of Rouen, Dominique Lebrun, told BFMTV.
“It’s an important gesture of fraternity. They’ve told us, and I think they’re sincere, that it’s not Islam which killed Jacques Hamel.”
“For me, it is very important to be here today,” Mohammed Karabila, President of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray Mosque, said in Rouen.
“It should be shown physically, because until now the Muslim community did a lot of things that were not seen.
Some 50 Muslims had already joined 350 Catholics at a vigil in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray’s second church on Saturday night.
