In a letter, President Emmanuel Macron cited a report by a joint French-Cameroonian team of historians, which clearly demonstrated that France had waged a 'war' in Cameroon, characterized by 'repressive violence.

Cutting down the tree that honoured Ilan Halimi is an attempt to kill him for a second time,” Macron wrote on X. “It will not succeed: the Nation will not forget this child of France, killed because he was Jewish.