French President Francois Hollande made an unannounced visit to the main mosque in Paris on Sunday, a year after deadly jihadist attacks in the French capital.

“The president had a short conversation and a moment of friendship and fraternity over a cup of tea,” a French presidency official said.

Earlier, Hollande attended a low-key event to mark a year since 1.5 million people thronged Paris in a show of unity following the shootings at Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a Jewish supermarket.

Mosques across France opened their doors to the public this weekend in a bid by the Muslim community to build bridges following a series of jihadist attacks that rocked France in 2015.

Earlier in the weekend, as part of memorials in Paris for the 17 individuals murdered in the January 2015 attacks, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls urged the Jews of France to remain in the country. 

The Prime Minister stressed the belated realization in his eyes of the rise of anti-Semitic crimes in France, and called to address the concerns of the Jewish community.

“The fact that French Jews leave their country in great numbers because they no longer feel safe…should have been for a long time for all of us an unbearable idea,” said Valls.

“I said with my words, with my heart, and I will continue to repeat it because it is a profound conviction: without the Jews of France, France would not be France,” he continued.

AFP contributed to this report.