UNITED NATIONS (AP) – French President Francois Hollande said Wednesday the terrorists who beheaded a French citizen in Algeria represent a global threat that must be stopped.
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, the visibly upset president said France would continue to fight terrorism despite the extremists’ call for the killing of its citizens.
“This particular group … they don’t strike only those who don’t think like they do, they also strike Muslims … they rape, they kill,” Hollande said. “It is for this reason that the fight the international community needs to wage versus terrorism knows no borders.”
Hollande addressed world leaders shortly after learning of the grisly death of Herve Gourdel at the hands of an Algerian extremist group aligned with the Islamic State that operates in Syria and Iraq. He changed the focus of his speech in the hours before ascending the podium.
He praised the 55-year-old Gourdel as a man devoted to mountain climbing who paid with his life for his decision to go mountaineering in Algeria.