The municipality of Nice, in southern France, wants to block Muslim parents from naming their son Mohamed Nizar Merah, a namesake of Islamic jihadist Mohamed Merah.
Nice was the site of the 14 July 2016 terrorist attack which the terror group Islamic State claimed and in which 86 people were killed and 434 injured.
A baby was registered at the beginning of November under the name Mohamed Nizar Merah – evoking that of terrorist Mohamed Merah, who went on a motorcycle shooting rampage in 2012 , killing three soldiers, a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France.
Christian Estrosi, a former mayor of Nice and currently the governor of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region said: "While our city has been hit hard by an attack this summer and its inhabitants are still bruised, it is unacceptable to see such actions.
"It is for this reason that we have alerted the prosecutor to take the right measures to modify this birth certificate whose content infringes [the principles of] our republic."
On 11 March 2012, Mohamed Merah killed paratrooper Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten in Toulouse, which he followed with a second attack on two soldiers two days later in Montauban. On 19 March 2012, he opened fire at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, killing a teacher and three children. Merah was later killed by French special forces.
