It sounds like they're on top of this.

get ugly for French Muslims.

to a French Islamist group with links to Al Quaeda

Sarkozy will exploit that.

What the hell was the purpose of such an attack? Do you think it is because they were possible Arabs/Muslims who had "intergrated" into French society, thus deemed traitors? Given the first attack, then this, my money (I would have lost the bet) was on neo-Nazis, or hardcore French nationalist racists (they see Jews as "non-French&quot .

And yes Sarkozy will exploit this...

And yes, things are going to get pretty ugly for French Muslims. Remember the Summer of burning suburbs/immigrant ghettos a few years back?

of course that could happen again.

I just find this bewildering. I wonder if this is the end, or just the beginning.

because the shooter wore a camera, like Anders Breivik did (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/europe/murders-france-more-detailsless-clarity)

if you google white supremacist toulouse shooting you won't get too many reliable sources and in fact some forums whose names I'd rather not mention.

in fact i even listened to "The Savage Nation" on monday (audio below) and heard Michael Savage (who is Jewish) dismissing this speculation and instead argued that a radical Muslim probably did the shootings. Given my views towards Savage/RW talk radio I dismissed his claims but it turns out he was right:

GMT times:

The 24-year-old Frenchman from Toulouse has said he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children".

Police are now negotiating with the man, who is still said to be heavily armed but has indicated he may give himself up in the afternoon.

Two police officers were injured in exchanges of fire during the raid and there are reports of a fresh blast.

The suspect's brother is under arrest.

The man's mother, who is Algerian, has been brought to the scene, but Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who is in attendance, said she had refused to become involved as "she had little influence on him".

The minister said the suspect had made several visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan... French media have linked the suspect to a group called Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride) that was banned by Mr Gueant in January....


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17446999

This will get more and more ugly.

Last edited Wed Mar 21, 2012, 05:42 AM - Edit history (2)

(Reuters) - A gunman under siege by French police in Toulouse, suspected of killing four people at a Jewish school this week, has told negotiators he will give himself up later today, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.

"He said ... he will turn himself in this afternoon," Gueant told BFM television, adding that authorities were determined to take the suspect alive so he could stand trial.

The gunman, a 24-year-old Frenchman claiming to belong to al Qaeda, threw a pistol from the window of the house in exchange for a "communication device", Gueant said. He still has an Uzi machine gun, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and other weapons, he said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/21/uk-france-crime-idUKBRE82I07O20120321

Besieged Toulouse gun suspect named as Mohammed Merah, 24, a Frenchman of Algerian origin - AFP reports

The man, named as Mohammed Merah, 24, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, has said he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17446999

Last edited Wed Mar 21, 2012, 10:52 AM - Edit history (1)

what evidence is offered linking him to the shootings?

It's not immediately clear (just from reading here)...

via Guardian blog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/mar/21/france-shooting-toulouse-police-suspects-jewish-school-raid

French school shooting suspect Mohamed Merah was not jailed in Afghanistan in 2007, his lawyer and an Afghan provincial official have said.

Earlier, Kandahar prison chief Ghulam Faruq had told Reuters that Afghan security forces detained Merah on 19 December 2007, and that he was sentenced to three years in jail for planting bombs in the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace.

But the Kandahar governor's office said that account was "baseless", citing judicial records. "Security forces in Kandahar have never detained a French citizen named Mohamed Merah," said the governor's spokesman, Ahmad Jawed Faisal.

Merah's lawyer in France, Christian Etelin, said his client was in prison in France from December 2007 until September 2009 serving a sentence for robbery with violence and therefore could not have been in Afghanistan at the time.



Looks like you may have been correct in thinking some reports were likely wrong.

Last edited Wed Mar 21, 2012, 09:57 AM - Edit history (1)

1.45pm: A police source has told Le Figaro that Merah has not been arrested and that negotiations are still under way.

1.41pm: Police are now saying that explosives were found in Merah's brother's car.

1.40pm: Guéant, however, is apparently denying any arrest ...

1.38pm: There's some speculation that Sarkozy himself will announce Merah's arrest as he's getting very near the scene. The election is just weeks away.

1.36pm: Reuters notes both BFMTV and i-Tele are reporting that Merah has been arrested after a standoff lasting nearly 12 hours.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/mar/21/france-shooting-toulouse-police-suspects-jewish-school-raid?intcmp=239

But the political debate around the shootings, and whether the deaths of an instructor and three young children were somehow inspired by anti-immigrant political talk, is likely to continue — both as a weapon in the presidential campaign and as a more general soul-searching about the nature of France.

No one is suggesting that the French presidential campaign inspired a serial killer to put a bullet in the head of an 8-year-old Jewish girl. The candidates largely suspended their campaigning and uniformly condemned the killings, as well as the murders of three French soldiers — two Muslims and a black man — apparently by the same man. But in a period of economic anxiety, high unemployment and concerns about the war in Afghanistan and radical Islam, the far right in Europe has made considerable gains, even in essentially liberal democratic countries like Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and France.

In some ways, the debate here is similar to that in Norway after Anders Behring Breivik killed dozens of young campers in cold blood in July. Were his actions encouraged in some way by too harsh a debate in Norway about immigrants and foreigners, or were they the acts of a madman who lived in a fantasy world and could have been from anywhere?

The murder of children “because of their origin, of the religion of their family,” is linked, Mr. (François) Bayrou (a centrist presidential candidate who came in third in the 2007 election) said, “to a growing climate of intolerance.” In a speech in Grenoble, he said: “I believe this kind of madness has roots in the state of a society, and in French society this kind of attack, of acts, is multiplying. There is a degree of violence and of stigmatization in the French society that is growing, and it is unacceptable.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/world/europe/french-school-shootings-spar-political-debate.html?_r=1

With the suspect and his motives now known - seems that the theories espoused in this article have nothing to do with the crimes.

21 March 2012 Last updated at 10:50 ET

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17462604