Murders in Midi-Pyrénees

By S.P. | PARIS

EVEN after a siege lasting over 24 hours, in which a heavily armed elite police squad have surrounded his house in Toulouse, Mohammed Merah, who is suspected of killing four adults and three children in a series of terror attacks in south-west France, remains holed up. This after days of drama, terror and national mourning that rocked the country and—temporarily—put its presidential-election campaign on hold.

The 23-year-old French national, who is of Algerian origin, is suspected of a multiple killing spree, fleeing each time aboard a motor scooter. Last week three paratroopers were shot dead (one in Toulouse, two others in nearby Montauban) and a fourth was seriously injured. All the dead were of north African origin. Two came from the 17th engineering parachute regiment that has served in Afghanistan.

On March 19th the killer struck again: as parents dropped off children at a Jewish school in Toulouse, two young boys and their father, a Franco-Israeli rabbi, were shot dead, as was the daughter of the headmaster. The four bodies were flown to Israel for burial.

In France's biggest manhunt in living memory, anti-terrorist police have been sent from Paris and thousands of policemen put on the case. Claude Guéant, the interior minister, has raised the terror alert to its highest level. Mr Merah was finally tracked down via his mother's computer, which had connected to a website advertising the sale of the scooter, and via a garage where the gunman's brother inquired about a tracking device on the machine.

Details are slowly emerging about Mr Merah. He was known to the French security services “for a long time”, said Mr Guéant, and had spent time in jihadist training camps in tribal areas on the Pakistani-Afghan border, as well as in prison in France for petty crime.

He told police negotiators that he belonged to al-Qaeda, and that he wanted to avenge Palestinian children, French armed campaigns abroad, especially in Afghanistan, and the French ban on wearing the Islamic veil in public. He is said to have planned at least three more shootings.

Was he supervised closely enough? Mr Guéant said that “nothing whatsoever” suggested he was planning an imminent attack. Yet the number of Frenchmen returnees from al-Qaeda training camps with such high-level training is “in single digits”, reckons François Heisbourg of the French Institute for Strategic Research.

Isolated French Islamists, radicalised in Islamist training camps, have been foiled trying to mount terror attacks in France before. One was arrested near Lyon in 2009, and is still awaiting trial. Another was found guilty of plotting a terror attack in 2007 against a military base in Dieuze, eastern France.

The affair has shaken the country, and monopolised the airwaves. President Nicolas Sarkozy called it a “national tragedy”. All schools held a minute's silence. Most candidates suspended their campaigns. There was a big political turnout both at a memorial service at a Paris synagogue, and at a military funeral in Montauban. Alain Juppé, the foreign minister, accompanied the coffins of the four Jewish dead to Israel.

Once the candidates resume their campaigns, Mr Sarkozy may emerge strengthened. Having flown straight to Toulouse after the school shootings, he has done a skilful job of being statesmanlike and solemn, yet remaining in touch with the national mood. His Socialist rival, François Hollande, has also sounded the right note, but from the shadows.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right National Front candidate, may also gain more support. She spoke out this morning against confusing Muslims with fundamentalists, and denounced those who accused her of fuelling divisions in France. “Putting real problems on the table in no way justifies the spread of Islamic fundamentalism,” she declared. The real issue, she added, was that such fundamentalism in France had been “underestimated”.

NOTE This piece has been updated and some minor corrections have been made.