Antisemitic acts have exploded in France since 7
October, interior minister says
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez tells of 257 cases in
the Paris region alone and 90 arrests
Agence
France-Presse
Mon 6 Nov
2023 01.14 GMT
France has
recorded more than a thousand antisemitic acts since the deadly 7 October
attack by Hamas gunmen on Israel, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has
said.
“The number
of antisemitic acts has exploded,” he told France 2 television, adding that 486
people had been arrested for such offences, including 102 foreigners.
Hamas
gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians,
and taking about 240 hostages, Israeli authorities say.
Since then,
Israel has attacked the Gaza Strip in its battle to destroy Hamas, levelling
many buildings and areas and, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry,
killing more than 9,700 people, mostly women and children.
France’s
Jewish population, estimated at over 500,000, is the largest in Europe and the
third-biggest in the world, after Israel and the US.
Paris
police chief Laurent Nunez said on Sunday that there had been 257 antisemitic
acts in the Paris region alone, and 90 arrests.
There was
no typical profile for those arrested, he added. They ranged from “young kids
who say very serious things” to people involved in the pro-Palestinian cause
who had gone too far.
The
Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure, called for all political forces to
mobilise against antisemitism.
In comments
to Radio J, he suggested a demonstration in the next few days at Place de la
Republique, a regular site for rallies in central Paris.
But his
initiative immediately came under fire from politicians on the left for his
failure to rule out allowing the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen to
take part.
Paris
prosecutors are already investigating the daubing of dozens of Stars of David
on buildings around the city and its suburbs last week. The Union of Jewish
Students of France said they were designed to mirror the way Jews were forced
to wear stars by the Nazi regime.
In the
central city of Lyon, prosecutors said this weekend they suspected that
antisemitism may have been behind an attack on a young Jewish woman, who was
stabbed in her home.
Police were
treating the attack as attempted murder, they said, adding that the woman’s
life was not in danger and no arrest had been made.
And the
mayor in the eastern city of Besancon on Sunday denounced what she said was a
fresh wave of antisemitic graffiti, after a first set appeared on 31 October.
“We are
witnessing an escalation of violence in the content of messages,” said Anne
Vignot, noting that such behaviour could be prosecuted.
The
developments in France came as the European Commission condemned the jump in
antisemitism across the EU since the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East,
saying “European Jews today are again living in fear”.
“The spike
of antisemitic incidents across Europe has reached extraordinary levels in the
last few days, reminiscent of some of the darkest times in history,” the
commission said in a statement.
“We condemn
these despicable acts in the strongest possible terms. They go against
everything that Europe stands for.”
Citing
antisemitic incidents in Austria, France, Germany and Spain, as well as
“demonstrators chanting hate slogans against Jews”, the commission, which is
the EU’s executive arm, said it was essential to push back against both
antisemitism “as well as the rise in anti-Muslim hatred that we have been
witnessing over the past weeks – which has no place in Europe”.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário