Multicultural France is once again, for the second time in a matter of days, reeling from a brutal, Islamist-inspired attack on a teenage student.
Following last week’s brutal attack that saw 15-year-old Shamseddine beaten to death outside his secondary school in the Parisian suburb of Viry-Châtillon, known for its ethnocultural diversity, four suspects have been arrested and charged with murder, the public prosecutor’s office announced on April 8th.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of Rassemblement National’s deputies in parliament, took to social media to express indignation at the Macron government for what she perceives as the passive role it played in the tragic killing.
“Dying at 15 after a savage ambush near his school. Murderous madness knows no bounds. My condolences to the family of the Viry-Châtillon teenager. When will the government finally take the measure of this savagery that is eating away at our society?” she wrote on X.
Macron, for his part, while addressing the attack on Friday during an appearance on BFMTV, failed to acknowledge the attack’s link to Islamism and migration. He told the television station: “We have a form of uninhibited violence among our teenagers and sometimes younger and younger.” Schools, he added, must be better protected from such acts of violence and should be a “sanctuary for children, their families, and teachers.”
Rassemblement National President Jordan Bardella reacted to the attack by saying it was part of a wider “Islamist offensive and outburst of violence” facing French schools. “It needs to be stopped immediately,” he went on, adding that the Macron’s government’s “firm words would not be enough.” Putting a stop to these incidents should be turned into a “national cause,” he concluded.
Grégoire Dulin, the public prosecutor responsible for the case, says the alleged perpetrators—aged between 15 and 20—had sought to stop exchanges “related to sexuality” between the victim and the 15-year-old sister of two of the suspects out of “fear for her reputation and that of their family.”
The victim, one of the “several boys” who was “instructed to no longer come into contact” with the girl, had responded by telling others at the school that “he could speak to her freely,” the public prosecutor said.
After catching wind of what the 15-year-old boy had said, at around 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 4th, the two brothers along with two other hood individuals, intercepted Shamseddine as he was leaving music class and beat him unconscious before fleeing the scene.
At some point thereafter, a passerby found the victim and called emergency services. They then quickly transported the boy to the hospital, where medical staff admitted him to intensive care. Tragically, he succumbed to his injuries the following night, shortly after the suspects—two 17-year-olds, a 20-year-old, and a 15-year-old girl—had been arrested and taken into police custody.
On Sunday evening, four of the five suspects were charged with murder, while the fifth, a 15-year-old girl and sister of one of the alleged attackers, is under investigation for “willful failure to prevent a crime.” All of the charged suspects remain in custody.
The ‘honor murder’ came just days after a similar incident in Montpellier, in the south of France, that saw a 14-year-old schoolgirl beaten into a coma by a group of her peers who believed she presented herself in a way that was insufficiently Muslim— or too Western. According to the girl’s mother, in the days and weeks leading up to the assault, she had been incessantly bullied and harassed by her attackers who hurled insults like “infidel” and “whore” at her for her European style of dress.
Shamsedinne’s family has asked that their privacy be respected as they bury their son on Tuesday, April 9th. A marche blanche (“white march”)—a solemn tribute march to his memory—will be held in Viry-Châtillon on Friday, AFP reports.
