In the wake of a brutal attack on a Jewish couple last week, in which a woman was raped and money was stolen because the assailants “were sure [their targets] had money since they are Jewish,” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazenueve said at a rally yesterday that fighting anti-Semitism was a “national cause.”
The BBC reports:
Officials say there has been a sharp increase in the number of anti-Semitism attacks in France in recent months.
Mr Cazeneuve told hundreds of assembled demonstrators that the government would defend France’s Jewish community with “all its force”.
“We must make the fight against racism and anti-Semitism a national cause,” he said.
The BBC quoted Roger Cukierman, the head of CRIF, France’s umbrella group for Jewish organizations, saying, “Jews feel in danger. Some are already leaving France.”
France24 reported Friday that 7,000 French Jews have emigrated to Israel so far this year, out of a population estimated to be about 500,000.
On Friday, an eight-year-old Jewish girl was taunted and harassed in school, the Algemeiner reports, citing a French radio report.
Later, in the school’s playground, the instigators prompted others to taunt the victim about her Jewishness and even tried to beat her. The violence was prevented when, after the young girl ran away, two Christian students at the school intervened and hid her in the playground. The girls also located the victim’s younger sister and hid her safely away as well.
According to the French-Jewish blog JSS News, the perpetrators, aged between 9 and 10 and their parents likely won’t face any sanctions besides possible expulsion from the learning institution.
Cazeneuve’s predecessor, Manuel Valls, now France’s Prime Minister, said last year that “Criticism of Israel that is based on anti-Zionism — that’s anti-Semitism today, this is the refuge of those who do not accept the State of Israel.”
Last week a French legislator, Meyer Habib, worried that a symbolic pro-Palestinian vote in the French National Assembly would invite more anti-Semitism.