Herzog to join Macron in marking decade since Toulouse Jewish school attack

President Isaac Herzog will travel to France next week, joining French President Emmanuel Macron at a ceremony marking the 10-year anniversary of a shooting attack in Toulouse that left three soldiers and four Jewish civilians dead.

Herzog and his wife Michal will travel to Paris on Sunday where he will first hold a diplomatic meeting with Macron, before the two leaders fly south to Toulouse for the memorial ceremony, according to an Israeli readout issued on Wednesday.

The invitation to the ceremony was extended by Macron last year during the latter’s meeting with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Herzog’s office said.

Mohamed Merah killed three soldiers in March 2012 before turning his sights on the Ohr Torah school in Toulouse, where he gunned down 30-year-old Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and his two children, six-year-old Arié and three-year-old Gabriel, along with 8-year-old Myriam Monsonego. Merah was killed by police after a 32-hour siege at his home, three days after the school assault.

The attack was the deadliest on Jews in France in three decades and marked the advent of a new threat from French-born radicals goaded by foreign terror groups to strike their homeland.

Next week’s ceremony will also be attended by local Jewish community leaders and former French presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande. The Herzogs will subsequently dine with the president and First Lady Brigitte Macron before returning to Israel on Monday.