22-year-old Aboubakar Cissé was stabbed to death in a mosque in the Gard region in southern France in April.
Until now, French authorities have treated his killing as aggravated murder. Cisse’s family wants the case to be classified as a terrorist attack.
The family’s lawyers were due to submit a complaint to the Paris judicial court on Friday, arguing that, Cissé – a Malian student – was the victim of a terrorist attack.
They argue that by killing Cisse inside a mosque, the attacker intended to intimidate and terrorize the Muslim faithful.
On Thursday, at least a thousand people gathered on in Paris, nearly a week after Cisse’s killing to denounce Islamophobia.
Some carried placards with slogans against racism. Cisse’s suspected killer, a 21-year-old Frenchman of Bosnian origin, surrendered to Italian police.
In the video he made himself shortly after her murder, the suspect insulted his victim’s religion.
