As auxiliary bishop, Jacquier was well known in the city of Algiers, where he engaged in humanitarian work.[10] From 1962 to 1965, Jacquier participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council.[1] In addition, he served as a co-consecrator of two bishops: André Charles Collini, the coadjutor bishop of Ajaccio, in 1962, and Jean Baptiste Joseph Scotto, the Bishop of Constantine, in 1970.[1]
Assassination
On Thursday, 8 July 1976, Jacquier was murdered, at age 72, in Algiers when he was stabbed in the street by a young man.[11][12][13] The attack took place shortly after noon, while the bishop was walking down the crowded Rue Khelifa Boukhalfa in central Algiers,[7][12][14] near the archdiocesan offices and St Charles Church (now El Rahma Mosque).[10] Witnesses reported that the man approached Jacquier, stabbed him several times with a knife, and fled into a car waiting nearby.[12][14] He was stabbed in the femoral artery in the inner thigh.[14] Jacquier was rushed to the city's main hospital, where he died half an hour later.[15][16] Two days after the attack, police arrested 26-year-old Abdessalam Abdelkader.[7][17][13] The police said that Abdelkader had used a kitchen knife in the attack.[17] They also reported that Abdelkader had a history of mental illness, having been treated several times in psychiatric hospitals.[7][17]
Although Abdelkader had a history of psychiatric problems, some felt that the attack was religiously motivated.[5][8] Jacquier was wearing full clerical attire at the time of the attack, including the pectoral cross worn by Catholic bishops.[5][8] Some also noted that the inner thigh where an artery is located is an unusual place for a mentally ill person to stab randomly.[14] In addition, the attacker fled quickly into a car that was waiting very close nearby.[14] Following Jacquier's murder, Duval ordered the priests in the Archdiocese of Algiers not to wear the religious habit in public or to display the cross conspicuously.[14] In the years that followed, the archdiocese's churches stopped ringing their bells to avoid inciting Islamic extremist violence.[14]
