The week at a glance...Europe

Toulouse, France

Terrorist caught: French police this week tracked down an Islamist militant who allegedly murdered seven people, including three Jewish children. As The Week went to press, Mohammed Merah, 24, a French national of Algerian descent, was holed up in his apartment and negotiating with police. Earlier this week, Merah allegedly rode a motor scooter up to a Jewish school in Toulouse and opened fire, killing a rabbi, his two young sons, and an 8-year-old girl. Witnesses said Merah cornered the girl in a courtyard and grabbed her by the hair; when his gun jammed, he changed weapons and shot her in the head before speeding away. Merah is also suspected of killing three French soldiers and wounding another in two separate incidents last week in the Toulouse region. Police tracked him down by tracing emails Merah sent to the first victim, a soldier who had advertised a scooter for sale. In the course of negotiations during a tense day-long standoff, Merah reportedly told police he had killed the soldiers, who were all Arab or black, as revenge for France’s military involvement in Afghanistan. The Jewish victims, he said, were payback for the deaths of Palestinian children.

A self-identified member of al Qaida, Merah was already on a police surveillance list because of 15 juvenile convictions and two trips in recent years to Afghanistan and Pakistan, one of which ended when he was apprehended by Afghan police and shipped back to France by the U.S. Army. The killings have transfixed France in the middle of its presidential campaign. While President Nicolas Sarkozy urged national unity in the face of the tragedy, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen took a different tack. “It is time to wage war on these fundamentalist political religious groups who are killing our children,” she said. “The Islamic fundamentalist threat has been underestimated in our country.”

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Berlin

Topless no more: Germany’s biggest-selling tabloid has stopped putting topless girls on its front page, ending a tradition going back 28 years. “I’m the last one!” chirped the headline over the photo of the final cover model for Bild. The accompanying article said the decision was made in honor of International Women’s Day. “It is perhaps a small step for women, but a big step for Bild and men,” the paper said. The change may have been made for commercial reasons: Bild needs to attract more female readers to boost its flagging circulation. A topless model will still appear daily on an inside page.