French prosecutors have opened an investigation after high school students were filmed singing a rap song that references Mohammed Merah, the terrorist who murdered a rabbi and three Jewish children at a school in Toulouse in 2012.
The video was filmed during a student blockade at François-Villon high school in Beaugency, in central France's Loiret department. The students were singing "MRH," a song by the rapper Boro700 that also references Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the cell behind the November 2015 Paris attacks, the Bataclan massacre and Adolf Hitler. French radio station Sud Radio said the song contains antisemitic provocations.
The Orléans prosecutor's office opened a preliminary investigation for glorifying terrorism, and three minors were taken into police custody on October 7. Prosecutor Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren said the case concerns the song's lyrics as sung at the school. The matter was referred to prosecutors by politician Éric Ciotti, who is among the figures attacked in the song.
In a separate incident, teenagers around 13 years old were filmed singing the same song inside a church in Soullans, in the Vendée department. The Diocese of Luçon condemned it as a serious attack on a place of worship, and prosecutors in La Roche-sur-Yon opened an inquiry.
The song has since been removed from Spotify and Deezer.
On March 19, 2012, Merah opened fire at the entrance of the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse. He murdered Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and his two sons, Arieh, 6, and Gabriel, 3. He then chased 8-year-old Myriam Monsonego into the schoolyard, grabbed her and shot her in the head.
In the days before the school attack, Merah had killed three French soldiers in Toulouse and Montauban, bringing the death toll from his attacks to seven. He was killed in a police raid on his apartment three days later.
