French Jews Express Outrage, Pledge Solidarity After Two French Police Officials Killed

French Jews expressed their outrage on Tuesday after two police officials, a husband and wife, were stabbed to death outside their home near Paris in an attack claimed by ISIS.

Francis Kalifat, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities pledged his solidarity with the family and security forces on Twitter. 

“I would like to express all forms of solidarity with the National Police and with the victims,” Kalifat wrote. “This barbarism must stop.”

The assailant stabbed Police Commander Jean-Baptiste Salvaing nine times as Salvaing was entering his home in Magnanville before forcing his way into the building himself. Inside, he killed Salvaing's wife, Jessica Salvaing, who was a policewoman, and took hostage their three-year-old son. Police freed the son and killed the assailant, who cried “Allah is the greatest” in Arabic before stabbing the husband, the French news agency AFP reported.

Islamist websites associated with ISIS wrote that the assailant was a member of the terrorist group.

Moche Lewin, the executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis, also expressed “solidarity” with French police in a post on his Twitter account.

Many French Jews regard attacks by Islamists and others on police and military as closely related to their own safety.

The Islamist who murdered four Jews at a Toulouse school in 2012 gunned down three soldiers before he targeted the Jewish institution. The jihadist who murdered four people at a kosher shop in January 2015 also killed a police officer the previous day.

Following those attacks, approximately 12,000 military and police were posted outside Jewish institutions, where they are sometimes attacked. CRIF and other groups often stage gestures expressing their gratitude to security forces at community events, and regularly condemn attacks on them in the harshest terms.