Support for France’s intervention against Islamic State militants in Iraq has surged to almost 70 percent after an Algerian Islamist group beheaded a French national earlier this week, an IFOP poll showed on Friday.
France, the first Western country to join the United State in striking targets in Iraq, carried out new raids west of Baghdad on Thursday, a day after Herve Gourdel was murdered in retaliation for France’s military action.
“Rather than weakening the support for the intervention, which the jihadists wanted, the murder has instead produced the opposite effect,” IFOP said, referring to its poll of 1,751 adults.
Thousands of French Muslims, who at 5 million make up about 8 percent of the population, are set to rally across the country on Friday to protest Islamic State, which many say does not represent their religion.
The IFOP poll showed an increase of 16 percentage points to 69 percent in support of French operations since Sept. 21, two days after fighter jets began striking targets in northern Iraq against militants who have seized a third of the country and also control large parts of neighboring Syria.
Reporting By John Irish; editing by Mark John
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