French MPs observe minute’s silence for Moscow terror victims

Paris has always “fought against Islamist terrorism,” President of the National Assembly Yael Braun-Pivet said

The French National Assembly observed a minute of silence before its session on Tuesday, in a tribute to the victims of last Friday’s deadly terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside of Moscow. The assault claimed the lives of 139 people and left more than 180 injured.

“France has always condemned such acts and fought against Islamist terrorism. Wherever it strikes, whatever the pretext, it must be fought,” the assembly’s president, Yael Braun-Pivet, told MPs.

“Eight and a half years after the Bataclan attack, Islamist terrorism has once again cowardly struck the audience of a concert hall,” she added, referring to a series of terrorist acts committed by Islamic State (IS, former ISIS) extremists in Paris in 2015. The group of terrorists carried out a mass shooting and took hostages at a rock concert in the Bataclan theater, killing 90 people. The assault was one of three coordinated attacks that claimed a total of 130 lives combined and left more than 400 people injured.

An IS-offshoot known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) has claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed “radical Islamists” for the attack, but said it still needed to be established who gave the order.

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Pressed on who may be responsible, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) Aleksandr Bortnikov said on Tuesday it could have been the US, the UK and Ukraine.

France’s minute of silence was held in memory of the Moscow terrorist attack victims and in “solidarity with their loved ones,” Braun-Pivet said. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said later on Tuesday that the Russian people should “never be confused with their leaders,” also expressing “solidarity” with them over the terrorist attack.

Relations between Moscow and Paris have been particularly sour in recent weeks, after President Emmanuel Macron repeatedly commented that the West should not rule out sending NATO troops to Ukraine at some point in the future of the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev.

His words alarmed even some of Paris’ NATO allies, who rushed to deny harboring such plans. Moscow warned in response that such a move would bring the world to the brink of a global conflict. Putin also warned against escalation earlier in March, saying that a direct clash between NATO and Russia would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”