Frenchman awaits fate as Indonesia executes eight

The fate of a Frenchman condemned to death in Indonesia appeared doomed on Wednesday, after eight fellow drug convicts were executed by a firing squad. The French president has warned Jakarta of consequences.

Published: 29 April 2015 08:56 CEST

Frenchman awaits fate as Indonesia executes eight

Serge Atlaoui, who is facing execution, is led away by Indonesian police. Photo: AFP

France on Wednesday condemned the executions in Indonesia of seven foreign drug convicts and said it remained concerned about the fate of a Frenchman also on death row in the Asian country.

The government "reiterates its opposition to the death sentence, in all cases and all circumstances," said French foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal.

The French authorities "are fully mobilised to help Serge Atlaoui, whose situation remains very worrying," Nadal said in a statement, expressing his government's "solidarity" with the countries whose nationals were put to death.

Atlaoui, 51, was originally among the group set to be executed but was unexpectedly granted a temporary reprieve Saturday after Indonesia agreed to allow an outstanding legal appeal to run its course.

In defiance of a storm of international criticism, the Indonesian authorities went ahead early on Wednesday with the execution by firing squad of two Australians, a Brazilian, four Africans and one Indonesian, reports said.

A Filipina woman who was set to suffer the same punishment was however spared at the 11th hour.

French President Francois Hollande has warned that Indonesia would face diplomatic "consequences" if it pushed ahead with the execution of Atlaoui over drug trafficking offences.

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.