President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that acts of terror would not succeed in dividing France, home to the biggest Muslim and Jewish communities in western Europe. “Terrorism will not succeed in fracturing our national community,” he said in a TV address as police in Toulouse tried to negotiate the surrender of a self-declared militant holed up in a flat after a series of killings. “I say to the entire nation that we must be united,” Sarkozy said after meeting with Muslim and Jewish leaders in the Elysee palace to discuss community relations in the wake of the deadly gun attacks. The president said that the French should not be tempted by revenge and should understand that the attacks had nothing to do with religion. Officials named the suspected killer as Mohammed Merah, a 24-year-old French citizen of Algerian origin who has bragged of being an Al-Qaeda member and claimed to have acted to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children. Palestinian missions in France on Wednesday condemned the “hateful” attack two days earlier on a school in the southwestern city of Toulouse in which three children and a rabbi were killed. Palestinian diplomatic missions “condemn in the strongest possible terms the hateful attack carried out in Toulouse,” a statement said. “All racist crimes are attacks on humanity in general and on the republic in particular.” In Ramallah, Palestinian territories, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said extremists must stop using the Palestinian cause to justify their acts of violence.
