PARIS (Reuters) – France to ban an Islamist group named the late Cheikh Yassin as part of a crackdown on activists over the murder of a French schoolteacher last week, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday .
Samuel Paty was beheaded on October 16 by an 18-year-old of Chechen descent seeking revenge for his victim’s use of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in a free speech class. The police shot the attacker down.
“It’s a battle for security, culture and education,” Attal said.
The banned group is named after Sheikh Yassin, a Palestinian Muslim leader and co-founder of the Hamas movement, assassinated in 2004. Hamas has denied any connection with the French group.
Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Edited by Gareth Jones
