various French muslims #conspiracy npr.org

In a corner convenience store, three men in their 30s are hanging out. I ask what they think about the Charlie Hebdo killings.

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"I'm not saying what they did was good," Hakim Dridi says of the killers.

But, he adds, "those cartoonists shouldn't have been doing that. They know Muslims are practicing their religion and they should leave them alone. They provoked it and they knew it was coming because they had a bodyguard."

The men have been watching a video on a large computer screen behind the counter, which is showing the police assault last Friday on the kosher market, where one attacker was killed after he killed four Jews in the store.

The men watching the video believe it was staged.

They also say there's no way one of the Kouachi brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo would have left his ID in the car.

The conspiracy theories pour out. One of the men says the two attacks were a plot by France, the U.S. and Israel to give Israel more power. They say it's unfair the world's media talk for weeks about Jewish deaths but say nothing when Muslim children die.

Their narrative seems worlds away from the "Je suis Charlie" demonstrations in Paris just a few miles away

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Confused?

So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

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