Lassana Bathily,24, Malian, described
as a "hero" after he helped hostages at a Jewish supermarket hide
during last week's Paris attacks will be awarded French nationality Tuesday,
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
Lassana,
who has lived in France since 2006 was praised for his "bravery" in a
statement by Cazeneuve, which also said the 24-year-old Malian's naturalisation,
will be granted at a ceremony on Tuesday.
As the hostage-taking siege by jihadist
Amedy Coulibaly began January 9, Bathily -- an employee at the kosher store in
eastern Paris -- ushered a group of trapped customers into a cold storage room,
shut off the refrigeration system, and closed the terrified people inside for
protection.
"I heard shots and I saw my
colleagues and clients running down," Bathily recalled later. "I told
them 'Come, come,' (and) got them into the freezer."
Bathily proposed helping the hiding
clients escape the supermarket through its delivery lift. But when no one
wanted to take that risk, Bathily fled alone, flagged down the police, and
provided them information on the layout of the store that was vital to the
assault that ended the siege.
-- and 220,000 signatures on an online
petition calling for his naturalisation --.
"We're brothers. It's not a
question of Jews, Christians or Muslims," he told French news channel
BFMTV. "We're all in the same boat, and we have to help one another to get
out of this crisis."culled
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