France to dissolve pro-Hamas Muslim group; Macron vows action against Islamist extremism

President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that a pro-Hamas group active in France would be dissolved for being "directly implicated" in the murder of a history teacher.

The decision to shut down the "Cheikh Yassine Collective", which supports the Palestinian cause and is named after the Hamas founder, will be taken at a Wednesday's cabinet meeting with a unit for the fight against Islamism in a northeastern suburb of Paris.

Also read| Paris teacher attack: Beheaded Samuel Paty will get France's highest honour

Macron also said that "actions will be stepped up" against Islamist extremism, four days after the beheading of a history teacher that sparked police raids on people and institutions with alleged links to Islamist militants.

"This is not about making more statements," Macron said during a visit to a Paris suburb. "Our fellow citizens expect actions. These actions will be stepped up."

Also see: Paris attack: Locals gather to pray for the decapitated Parisian teacher

History and geography teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded on Friday (October 16) outside a middle school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine by an 18-year-old man of Chechen origin.

Prosecutors said the attacker, shot dead by police soon after the attack, wanted to punish the teacher for showing his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics class on freedom of expression earlier this month.

The murder shocked France, carrying echoes of the 2015 attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Public figures called the killing an assault on the republic and on French values, and Paty is to posthumously receive France's highest award, the "Legion d'Honneur."