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Priest Killed In Attack On Church In Northern France; ISIS Blamed

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

In the north of France, two men with knives entered a church this morning and killed a priest in an attack that French President Francois Hollande has blamed on the Islamic State. We reached The Wall Street Journal's Noemi Bisserbe in Paris via Skype.

And let me ask you what you know about what happened in that church.

NOEMIE BISSERBE: So what we know so far is that two men who claimed allegiance to Islamic State entered the church during mass and killed the priest and gravely wounded another person who was present at church. This person is still between life and death according to the interior ministry. Both the men who conducted the attack have been shot by police.

MONTAGNE: And what do we know about those two men, the attackers?

BISSERBE: Well, we still know very little about these two men. We know that they claimed allegiance to Islamic State. We don't know - they haven't been identified yet.

MONTAGNE: This attack - this killing comes on the heels of the massacre in Nice, and France is under a state of emergency. How much of a shock is this?

BISSERBE: Well, it definitely has been a very difficult year for French people. And this attack against, like, the Catholic Church is an attack of a new kind again. People in France are very shocked by those attacks. And this is also leading to a lot of tension among French politicians, which is making things worse for French people here.

MONTAGNE: Noemie Bisserbe is with The Wall Street Journal. We reached her in Paris. Thank you very much.

BISSERBE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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