French presidential contenders were quick to condemn the deadly shooting of four Jews at the Ozar HaTorah school in Toulouse.

President Nicolas Sarkozy visited the school personally to offer his condolences and express solidarity with France’s Jewish community.

“This murder doesn’t just hurt the Jewish community, the entire national community is distressed and is by your side,” Sarkozy said.

Earlier on Monday, a gunman using an 11.43mm weapon opened fire on the Jewish school, located in Toulouse, killing four.

The dead included Rabbi Gavriel Sandler, his sons Aryeh, 6, and Gavriel, 3.5, and 8 year-old Miriam Monsonegro, daughter of the director of Ozar HaTorah.

Sarkozy also noted that the attack was eerily similar to the murder of three French paratroopers in Montauban, near Toulouse, last Friday.

“We are struck by the similarity of the modus operandi of today’s tragedy and that which occurred last week,” he said.

In that attack, a gunman on a black motorbike pulled up at a cash machine and opened fire. An 11.43 mm. weapon was used in that attack, as well.  However, connecting the two incidents also acts to obscure somewhat the anti-Semitic motive in the Jewish school murders. 

Socialist François Hollande – Sarkozy’s main rival for the French presidency – is also planning to visit the scene.

Israel has urged the French authorities to do whatever it takes to track down the perpetrator.