French couple planning to ‘sacrifice’ son arrested in Spain

A French couple who intended to murder their five-year-old son were arrested in the Spanish port of Algeciras earlier this month.

Published: 30 December 2023 17:09 CET

French couple planning to 'sacrifice' son arrested in Spain

Spanish police arrested a French couple that had planned to sacrifice their son in the Sahara desert. (Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP)

Spanish authorities on Saturday said they had arrested a French couple earlier in December for planning to “sacrifice” in
the Sahara their five-year-old son, who they believed to be “possessed”.

The couple was arrested on December 21 in the southern Spanish port of Algeciras, as the family was about to board a ferry to the Moroccan city of Tangiers.

The Guardia Civil police force said in a statement they had arrested a “couple of French origin” who “intended to murder their five-year-old son in the Sahara, believing him to be possessed”.

Both parents had “psychiatric problems” and were the subject of a European arrest warrant for the abduction of a minor, the Guardia Civil added.

The pair have been remanded in custody by a judge in Spain.

The child is in good health and has been sent to a reception centre for minors in Spain before being returned to France.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.