“It is intolerable that in our country citizens should feel so upset and under assault because of their religious choice that they would conclude that they have to hide,” Hollande told the AFP news agency.

Joel Mergui, president of the Central Israelite Consistory of France, rejected the advice to stop wearing yarmulkes.

“If we have to give up wearing all distinctive sign of our identity we have to ask ourselves frankly, what is our future in France?” Mergui told the daily Le Monde newspaper.