The humanitarian worker had been abducted April 20 or 22 in Niger by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and was taken to Mali, officials said.
The killers will “not go unpunished,’’ Sarkozy said in unusually strong language, given France’s habit of employing quiet cooperation with its regional allies — Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Algeria — in which the Al Qaeda group was spawned amid an Islamist insurgency.
The Salafist Group for Call and Combat formally merged with Al Qaeda in 2006 and spread through the Sahel region — parts of Mauritania, Mali, and Niger.
Officials suggest France will activate accords with these countries to hinder the terrorists.
“It’s a universal threat that concerns the entire world . . . not just France or the West,’’ Defense Minister Herve Morin said on France-2 television. “We will support local authorities so these assassins and [their] commanders are tracked, judged, and taken before justice and punished. And, yes, we will help them.’’
Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger in April opened a joint military headquarters deep in the desert to respond to threats from traffickers and the Al Qaeda offshoot. US Special Forces have helped the four nations train troops.
The United States said it would help the French in any way to bring those who killed Germaneau to justice, according to P.J. Crowley, State Department spokesman.
“There is no religion that sanctions what can only be described as cold-blooded murder,’’ Crowley said yesterday.
Fillon refused to say how France would act. “But we will,’’ he said in an interview with Europe 1 radio.
On Thursday, the French-backed Mauritanian forces attacked an Al Qaeda camp on the border with Mali, killing at least six suspected terrorists. It is the first time France is known to have attacked an Al Qaeda base.
France said it was a last-ditch effort to save its citizen, while Mauritania contended that it was trying to stop an imminent attack by fighters gathering at the base.
