Henri Astier

Media caption, Abdelghani Merah tells the story of his jihadist brother The name I was sent jumped from the screen. The activist fighting Islamic radicalism on the French Riviera was Abdelghani Merah. He had the same surname as Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old extremist who killed seven people in south-western France in 2012 before being shot dead by police. I rang Abdelghani, introduced myself as a journalist reporting on jihadism in the Nice area, and remarked on the coincidence of his name. "Mohamed Merah was my little brother," he said in a soft Toulouse accent. I was startled. Read more from Henri Astier in Nice: We meet on Bastille Day. Abdelghani is wearing a T-shirt and a fake LA Dodgers cap. We find shelter from the sun at a cafe by a marina. The 39-year-old tells me the story of the ultimate dysfunctional family. Image source, AFP Image caption, Mohamed Merah went on a 12-day killing spree, targeting soldiers and Jewish schoolchildren The seeds of Mohamed Merah's radicalisation, he contends, were planted during childhood. Abdelghani always uses his brother's full name, as if he was a stranger. Their Algerian-born mother and father, he says, "hated France and everything that embodies its diversity". Life at home was rife with violence and intolerance. Their father spent five years in jail for trafficking in cannabis. But such a broken childhood, he insists, is no excuse for his brother's crimes later in life - or his own. "I experienced the same hardship as Mohamed Merah," he says. "