Thousands of people joined a silent march Saturday in the southern French city of Nice in memory of Hervé Gourdel, the hiker beheaded last week by Algerian militants linked to the Islamic State group, reports FRANCE 24.
Gourdel was seized on September 21 by the IS-linked group Jund al-Khilifa, or "Soldiers of the Caliphate", while trekking in a national park in northeastern Algeria.
His beheading, which was posted online in a video Wednesday after France rejected the kidnappers' ultimatum to halt anti-IS air raids in Iraq, sparked an outpouring of grief and fury in France.
Carrying 2,000 posters of Gourdel and 1,000 white roses, the cortege of family, friends and well-wishers wove through Nice, the 55-year-old's hometown, to an open-air theatre where a fellow mountain guide paid homage to him.
"We will hold on to the indelible memory of your friendship," Michel Bricola read out in a choked voice, surrounded by a dozen fellow mountaineers.
Gourdel was murdered after three other Western hostages - two US journalists and a British aid worker - were beheaded by IS.
The rally in Nice came after Muslims in Paris gathered outside the capital’s ornate Grand Mosque on Friday to denounce the beheading of Gourdel.
Standing on the steps of the mosque after the Friday noon prayers, Dalil Boubakeur, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, stressed that Gourdel’s killers had no claim to Islam.
"Islam is a religion of peace," said Boubakeur. “We, the Muslims of France, are shocked by this horrible assassination and we say stop the barbarism and terrorism.”
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.