TOULOUSE, Nov 1: French President Francois Hollande on Thursday said guaranteeing the safety of Jews was a ‘national cause’, as he addressed a memorial for four Jews shot dead in the country’s south.

“France will hunt down terrorism... by all possible means,” Hollande said, speaking at a Jewish school in Toulouse at a ceremony attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Voicing the “determination of the French Republic to fight anti-Semitism”, he pledged measures to ensure that Jews lived in total security in France. “Safeguarding their safety, their integrity and their dignity is a national cause,” he said.

Mohamed Merah, a self-described Al Qaeda sympathiser, shot a rabbi, three Jewish schoolchildren and three French paratroopers in attacks in and around the southern city of Toulouse last March, before being shot dead in a police siege.

“Let us learn the lessons of this ordeal for humanity, for mankind,” Hollande said, adding: “We shall never forget.”

Netanyahu, speaking in French and then in Hebrew, hailed Hollande’s “determined and clear message” to stamp out anti-Semitism.—AFP