Macron to join march after murder of 85-year-old Holocaust survivor

FRANCE’S political leaders will join a solemn march today in memory of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor after two men were charged with her murder on anti-semitic grounds.

Mireille Knoll, who escaped a mass roundup of Jews in Paris during the Second World War, was found dead last Friday in her flat in Paris’s eastern 11th arrondissement, where she lived alone.

She had been stabbed eleven times before her body was set on fire, the autopsy revealed.

President Emmanuel Macron described the death as a “dreadful” crime, saying: “I reaffirm my total determination in fighting anti-semitism.”

Daniel Knoll, the victim’s son, told i24 News that one of the suspects had lived next door, adding that on the day of the murder, the neighbour had spent some time chatting with his mother at the flat, with the two sharing a drink.

“The terrible thing is that one of the attackers told the other: ‘She’s a Jew, she must have money’,” Gérard Collomb, the interior minister, told parliament yesterday.

“She was a woman of modest means,” Gilles-william Goldnadel, her family lawyer, told AFP. “There was absolutely nothing of value to steal.”

The two men have been placed under formal investigation for murder motivated by the victim’s “real or supposed adherence to a religion”, as well as aggravated theft and damage to property.