Photo: Hichem Miraoui, a 46-year-old barber originally from Tunisia, was coldly shot dead in front of his home in Puget-sur-Argens on May 31. (Credit Facebook)
Elham Asaad Buaras
A 53-year-old sports shooting enthusiast was charged on June 5, with murder and attempted murder linked to a terrorist enterprise motivated by race, religion, or nationality, following a deadly shooting on May 31 in the southern French town of Puget-sur-Argens. He is accused of carrying out the attack with a racist motive, targeting two men of North African and Turkish origin.
Christophe Belgembe, who allegedly researched his victims’ backgrounds in advance, shot dead his 31-year-old neighbour, Hichem Miraoui, a Tunisian barber, and seriously wounded a Turkish man, who sustained an injury to his hand and required hospital treatment. Miraoui was shot five times and died at the scene.
The case, initially treated as a possible hate crime, was escalated and taken over by the national anti-terror prosecutor’s office, which is treating it as an act of terrorism “motivated by the race, ethnicity, nationality or religion of the victims”. Belgembe fled the scene by car after the attack but was quickly arrested nearby after his partner contacted police. French prosecutors confirmed that he posted racist and hateful videos online, both before and after the shooting. In one video, he allegedly declared allegiance to the French flag and urged others to “shoot people of foreign origin”.
Despite confessing to the shooting, Belgembe denies racial motivation. He remains in custody pending trial.
The killing has sparked widespread outrage in France and Tunisia. Thousands joined vigils and marches in Miraoui’s hometown and in cities including Marseille, with signs reading “Racism has killed again” and “Rest in peace, Hichem”. Miraoui’s body has since been repatriated to Tunisia.
France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin condemned the murder as a “racist act”, describing racism as “a deadly poison”.
He confirmed discussions with Tunisia’s ambassador and Foreign Minister Khaled Nouri, who labelled the shooting a “terrorist crime”. The Tunisian government has called on French authorities to guarantee the safety of Tunisian nationals in the country. The advocacy group SOS Racisme also denounced the killing as “unquestionably racist”, warning that it reflects a “poisonous climate” fuelled by increasingly normalised xenophobic rhetoric.
“This tragedy is part of a disturbing trend of racially motivated crimes we’ve seen in recent months,” it said. This incident follows another hate-driven killing in April, when Aboubakar Cissé, a Malian man, was stabbed to death at a mosque in La Grand-Combe. The suspect in that case was arrested in Italy and extradited to France.According to civil rights monitors, France recorded a 70% increase in Islamophobic incidents between January and March 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.
The terrorism classification of the Puget-sur-Argens attack means the investigation will benefit from enhanced prosecutorial powers, allowing for a wider probe into any potential ties to far-right extremist networks.
