France: Eight-year-old boy questioned by police for supporting Charlie Hebdo gunmen

French police have reportedly questioned an eight-year-old after he allegedly claimed at a Nice school, in southern France: "Je ne suis pas Charlie, je suis avec les terrorists" (I am not Charlie [Hebdo], I'm with the terrorists).

Ahmed and his father were summoned by police for apology of terrorism following a report of the school's headmaster. A day after the deadly shooting at the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo at the hands of the Kouachi brothers that left 12 people killed, the boy reportedly refused to take part to a solidarity event organised in the playground.

He also voiced his support to the gunmen, who claimed their attacks were justified by the mag's cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed. Ahmed is believed to have said "the journalists deserved death".

The father was reported to have had a verbal row with a teacher.

"In the current context, the school principal decided to report to police what had happened," said Marcel Authier, in charge of the region's public security.

"We summoned the child and his father to try to understand how an eight-year-old boy could hold such radical ideas," he added. "Obviously, the child doesn't understand what he's saying."

The boy's lawyer Sefen Guez Guez wrote on his twitter feed that the child admitted saying the words "I am with the terrorists" but he had no idea what the word "terrorism" meant when asked by police.

The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), a leading anti-racism watchdog, released a statement denouncing "the collective hysteria that has engulfed France since early January".