From now on the small, terraced bungalow at 35 Nikola Tesla street will be known as "the terrorist's house".
After 19-year-old Adel Kermiche and an accomplice murdered 86-year-old Fr Jacques Hamel as he celebrated Mass on Tuesday, police cordoned off the working class estate where Kermiche lived with his parents. Relatives were escorted away, their hands held over the heads, for questioning.
On Wednesday the house was desolate, its metal shutters sealed, sacks of uncollected rubbish dumped on the dead lawn and a cannibalised car in the driveway.
When they ransacked the house, police found an identity card in the name of Abdel Malik P, also 19 years old, from Savoie. They believe he was the second killer.
A few houses away, a skinny black man called Baudry is mobbed by television cameras. He grew up with Kermiche and remains close to the dead jihadi's older sister, Nissa. The two young men worked together as animateurs, government-subsidised youth organisers. Baudry says he knew nothing of Kermiche's radicalisation.
Two churches
“I’m fed up with
France
, ” Kermiche told his mother when he twice attempted to reach
Syria
last year. The second time, she gave an interview to the
Tribune de Genève
newspaper, because Adel was briefly held in
Switzerland
.
Until the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre, her son was "a happy kid who liked music and girls . . . If he made it to Syria, I knew that would be the end of him," Mrs Kermiche said. "I'd like to know what messed up our kid."
The metal gate of the local mosque where Kermiche allegedly prayed is locked shut. No one answers the telephone. The Muslims of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray have gone to ground.
An African in a green robe and cylindrical hat walks past. He is Haji Bayo Khiraba (60) from Guinea-Conakry and a retired worker in the nearby Renault factory. "I wept when I heard," Khiraba says. "The mosque and the church should be safe havens. The future will be hell. For everybody."
The town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray has two churches in one parish: the beautiful 16th century edifice where Fr Jacques was murdered and the modern église Sainte-Thérèse near the mosque.
Gabriel Moba (60), an immigrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo who has lived in the town for 27 years, is choir master for both churches. Sainte-Thérèse sold the Muslims the plot for the mosque for a symbolic euro, he says. "Until it was built, we lent them our hall for feasts during Ramadan."
Moba does not want to admit that the murder of Fr Jacques has destroyed the fragile balance between residents of French ancestry and Portuguese, Arab and African immigrants.
The murdered priest “was a martyr”, says the choir master. “He died on the job, wearing his chasuble. He was a good soldier.”
Islamic State, which is also known as Isis, said the attack in the church was carried out by its “soldiers”. Jihadis would call Adel Kermiche a martyr, I note. “That’s a mockery of the word,” Moba says. “They are devils who will go to hell.”
Marie José Barroso (52), a Portuguese cleaning woman, greets Moba sadly. Fr Jacques officiated at her son’s funeral and baptised her three grandchildren.
“The Muslims get everything they want from town hall. We get nothing,” Barroso says. “Their children eat halal at school. Ours don’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent. It creates tension.”
In the church parking lot, Barroso’s friend Fatima Cabrail (75) embraces her, weeping. “Fr Jacques attended our 50th wedding anniversary,” she says. “He performed my granddaughter’s marriage, baptised my granddaughter. I loved him. My house is behind the mosque. Now I’m afraid to go outside.”
Flowers, candles and handwritten messages pile up outside the town hall.
“I’m an atheist, but I knew Fr Jacques well,” says François Queruel, a baker. “My wife wanted our children to be baptised, so we asked him. He was a man of incredible goodness. It’s the lowest of the low, murdering an 86-year-old man.”
Queruel surveys the television trucks. “Until yesterday, nobody ever heard of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray,” he muses.
The town is a communist party bastion, but the Front National (FN) nearly won the last elections. "The attack will tip the balance," Queruel says. "People don't say they're FN, but they vote FN. I'm more afraid of a civil war than of another attack here, because there are no limits to human stupidity."
Shrouded church
Twenty-four hours after the attack, the
église
Saint-Étienne
is shrouded from view, incongruously, by white marquees like those used for cocktail parties. Retired policeman Michel Delesques (64) chats with the riot police who block access to the church.
"Don't believe what French TV says, that this is 'a nice little town'. The Muslims wear their beards down to here now," Delesques says, holding a hand at stomach-level. "In Oissel, just over the bridge, football players pray prostrate on the ground before matches. In the open-air market, 80 out of 100 stalls are run by Muslims. We've been invaded . . . These people must be sent back . . . We need a French Guantánamo. "
Place of pilgrimage
Delesques’s friend Patrick, who runs a stall in the market, asks why the law against full-face veils is not enforced. Wednesday’s market was cancelled because, he says, “people are too angry. If a Frenchman sees a woman in a burka today, he’ll tell her to go back where she came from.”
Another memorial has sprung up outside the gate to Fr Jacques's house, where a young man with a rosary leads three women in prayer. They have travelled from Paris, Rouen and nearby Elbeuf. Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray has become a place of pilgrimage.
Brigitte Autret (63), a retired bank worker from Rouen, launches into an uninterrupted rant: “I live in a Muslim neighbourhood. They say that we native French people are racist, but Muslims have a hatred in them. They cut his throat like a sheep. They want a war of religion. Nostradamus predicted there would be a war of religion . . . They called me an old whore yesterday.
“I didn’t want General de Gaulle to bring all those Algerians here. Why should we pay for what was done decades ago? These people came to France. We needed them to work here. They didn’t teach their children proper French. Now we will have to look over our shoulders everywhere. I wasn’t born to have my throat slit. There is going to be trouble.
“Let the politicians feel it in their flesh. What is in the shit? France! . . . Bring the tanks into the streets . . . I can’t close my eyes to the drugs, the rudeness. I have to lower my eyes when I pass them or they say I’m aggressive . . . Nobody else commits these attacks . . . What have they been doing for the last 20 years? Watching decapitation videos and collecting welfare payments. What have they made of their children? Terrorists!”
“You’re a racist!” shouts an outraged woman, who has paused before Fr Jacques’ house.
“My father is a Muslim and my mother is a Christian,” a second angry woman, of mixed race, interrupts. “I was born in France and I work and pay taxes! You cannot say such things!”
“Then get the gallows for me!” Autret says, almost spitting. As the argument grows more heated, I slip away.
