Sarkozy: Mideast Christians victims of 'cleansing'

French President makes damning comments following church attacks in Egypt, Iraq.
2011-01-07

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that Christian minorities in the Middle East are victims of "religious cleansing", following deadly attacks on churches in the region.

"We cannot accept and thereby facilitate what looks more and more like a particularly wicked programme of cleansing in the Middle East, religious cleansing," he said in an annual New Year's address to religious leaders.

An attack on a Coptic church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on January 1 killed 21 people. the rest