Muslims attend Catholic Masses in France

Muslims have attended Catholic Masses in churches and cathedrals across France in a gesture of solidarity after the brutal killing of an 85-year-old French priest in Normandy.

Reporters said between 100 and 200 Muslims gathered at the towering Gothic cathedral in Rouen, only a few miles from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, where Rev Jacques Hamel was killed by two teenage attackers on Tuesday.

“We’re very touched,” Archbishop Dominique Lebrun told broadcaster BFMTV.

“It’s an important gesture of fraternity. They’ve told us, and I think they’re sincere, that it’s not Islam which killed Jacques Hamel.”

Outside the church, a group of Muslims were applauded when they unfurled a banner: “Love for all. Hate for none.”

Similar interfaith gatherings were repeated elsewhere in France.

At Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral, Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Mosque of Paris, said repeatedly that Muslims want to live in peace.

“The situation is serious,” he told BFMTV.

“Time has come to come together so as not to be divided.”