2023-11-06 13:27:05
“The number of anti-Semitic acts has exploded.” This is the observation made by Gérald Darmanin, in an interview on 20 Heures de France 2, Sunday November 5. The Minister of the Interior announced that 1,040 anti-Semitic acts had been committed in France and that 486 people had been arrested since October 7, the start of the war between Hamas and Israel. Among those arrested, 102 are foreigners, he added.
The Paris police chief, Laurent Nuñez, for his part indicated on Sunday on BFMTV that there had been 257 anti-Semitic acts in Paris and in the three departments of the inner suburbs (Val-de-Marne, Hauts-de-Seine , Seine-Saint-Denis) since October 7, “more than in an entire year”. There were also 90 arrests for these anti-Semitic acts, “authors of insults, tags, even violence”.
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There is no “typical profile”, added the police prefect. “We find all the profiles, young kids who say very serious things, but also people more anchored in the defense of the pro-Palestinian cause and who slip up,” he said.
On October 31, Gérald Darmanin indicated that, throughout France, “857 anti-Semitic acts” had been recorded since October 7, or “as many in three weeks as in the entire past year”.
More than 400 anti-Semitic acts in 2022
According to a count made public on January 25, 2023 by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (Crif), the anti-Semitic acts recorded in 2022 were numbering 436compared to 589 the previous year, a drop of 26%.
Crif specified that these figures came from the annual report published by the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ), a private organization emanating from the main Jewish institutions. A report carried out “with the Ministry of the Interior”, according to Crif.
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In detail, the SPCJ notes that, over the year 2022, 231 acts of attacks against people were recorded, or 53% of them, mainly threatening words and gestures. 42 violent acts were committed, or approximately 10% of all anti-Semitic acts. In addition, 205 attacks on property were recorded, mainly anti-Semitic writings.
These figures must be put into perspective, indicated the president of Crif, Yonathan Arfi, to AFP, in particular because they are “only the figures recorded in police stations”, because “the most serious acts remain at a high level”, or even because they “do not reflect […] the reality of anti-Semitism on the Internet.
Nearly 1,000 acts recorded in 2004
Figures from the Ministry of the Interior, established by the Central Territorial Intelligence Service (SCRT), which became the National Directorate of Territorial Intelligence (DNRT) in 2023, indicate that the number of recorded anti-Semitic acts fluctuated between 1992 and 2022 in France.
If the second half of the 1990s was marked by a limited number of anti-Semitic acts, as in 1998, with 81 cases reported, reports the statistics portal Statista, the figures rose sharply in 2000 with nearly 750 cases recorded that year. It was in 2004 that a peak was reached, with nearly 1,000 cases recorded – 974, to be precise. Subsequently, the figures vary depending on the year, with between 311 and 851 anti-Semitic acts being recorded per year.
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According to Crif, the SPCJ also carried out “a study […] on the criminal response to anti-Semitic physical attacks committed from 2015 to 2019”. It appears that “63% of cases of anti-Semitic attacks [avaient] been dismissed [et que] the attackers [avaient] were convicted in only 24% of cases.
Of the 257 anti-Semitic acts committed in the Paris metropolitan area since October 7, only 124 complaints have been filed, said the prefect of police, Laurent Nuñez, who encourages victims to file complaints so that investigations can be initiated.
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