Police interrogate 8-year old boy after school reports him for praising terrorism

An eight-year-old boy was interrogated by police in France after his school reported him for 'praising terrorism'.

The child - called Ahmed - allegedly refused to take part in a minute's silence at his school, in Nice, on January 8 in honour of the victims of the terror attacks in Paris earlier this month.

According to Marcel Authier, head of the region's public security, the boy's teacher said the child also expressed 'solidarity' with the Islamist gunmen, who shot dead 12 at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on January 7. 

The child was questioned by police for half an hour on Wednesday, thelocal.fr reported.

Mr Authier, who said no complaint has been filed against the child, said: 'In the current context, the principal of the school decided to report to police what had happened.

We summoned the child and his father to try and comprehend how an eight-year-old boy could hold such radical ideas.'

He added: 

'Obviously, the child doesn't understand what he's saying.'

Sefen Guez Guez, who is the boy's lawyer, wrote on Twitter that the child admitted saying the words:

 'I am with the terrorists'.

But when police asked him what 'terrorism' meant, he said: 'I don't know'.