A Muslim employee who was praised for saving the lives of shoppers at last week’s kosher grocery siege in Paris is to be granted French citizenship.
Lassana Bathily, 24, a Malian-born assistant at the Hyper Kasher supermarket, shepherded terrified customers to safety in a switched-off refrigerated storeroom to avoid Amedy Coulibaly, the Islamist gunman who shot dead three customers the start of Friday’s attack.
After over 240,000 people backed an internet petition calling for Mr Bathily to receive the Legion d’Honneur decoration and also to be granted citizenship, Bernard Cazeneuve, the Interior Minister, said that in response to “the act of bravery of Mr Lassana Bathily”, the ministry would naturalize him next Tuesday.
Mr Bathily applied for citizenship last July, a process that can take