French parents name newborn after Muslim terrorist

After parents in Nice, France named their child after Mohamed Merah, an Islamist terrorist who killed seven people in terror attacks on a Jewish school and French paratroopers in the southwestern Toulouse region in 2012, a judge will rule on whether they must change the name.

French authorities learned of the outrage at the beginning of the month.

Nice mayor Philippe Pradel and regional president Christian Estrosi said in a statement Saturday that the family choice of the first name “may be contrary to the child’s interest.”

“It is for this reason that we have alerted the prosecutor to take the right measures to modify this birth certificate whose content infringes [the principles of] our republic,” they stated.

A family affairs judge will hear the case and decide whether the family needs to change the first name of the child.

On March 11, 2012, Mohamed Merah killed paratrooper Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten in Toulouse, which he followed with a second attack on two soldiers two days later in Montauban.

On March 19, he opened fire at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, killing a teacher and three children. Merah was later killed by French Special Forces.

Nice was the site of the July 2016 Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist attack which killed 86 people and wounded 434.

By: World Israel News Staff
AP contributed to this report.