2023-10-21 11:00:00
“No one will touch a hair of a Jew in France without waiting for the devastating response from the State.” Faced with the 400 guests present at the annual dinner of the Jewish community of Val-de-Marne, gathered in Créteil on Tuesday October 17, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin was extremely firm on the question of anti-Semitic acts. Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, reports of such acts on French territory have exploded: the latest national figures listed by the Ministry of the Interior and transmitted this Friday to L’Express show ” 460 reports for anti-Semitic acts. They gave rise to “214 arrests” in two weeks, specifies Beauvau. On the Internet, “3,500 reports” have also been recorded by the Pharos platform, and “300 cases have already been brought to justice”. For comparison, over the entire year 2022, the Ministry of the Interior and the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ) recorded 436 anti-Semitic acts. In two weeks, the reports have already exceeded last year’s total.
Gérald Darmanin to the Jewish community: “Don’t be afraid (…) no one will touch a hair of a Jew in France without waiting for the devastating response from the State” pic.twitter.com/3KwnkeOpq0
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) October 17, 2023
Guest of RTL morning show this Friday morning, the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti for his part mentioned “196 investigations opened, including 47 for advocating terrorism”. The Minister of Justice recalled that convictions “have already been handed down”, such as in Bobigny, where sentences of three years’ imprisonment, two of which were firm, were handed down “for anti-Semitic comments and advocating terrorism “.
The Nanterre public prosecutor’s office, for example, reported to L’Express 31 proceedings for acts with anti-Semitic connotations, “including the vast majority of threats, insults or apologies for terrorism, as well as some degradations” since October 10. No less than ten people were taken into police custody, following which five cases were brought before the public prosecutor’s office. No conviction has yet been handed down. The Nanterre public prosecutor’s office also specifies that four procedures for remarks of an Islamophobic nature “in connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” were processed.
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The Paris prosecutor’s office, for its part, transmitted to L’Express the details of around ten cases of anti-Semitic acts which were the subject of prosecutions in the capital – without specifying the exact number of cases in progress. On October 8, two individuals were, for example, arrested separately in front of synagogues in the 19th and 16th arrondissements of the capital, and brought to appear immediately for “apology of terrorism” and “repeated death threats made because of religion.” . The next day, an individual called the emergency police, believing “that two synagogues needed to burn”. The author of this phone call was brought in court on October 12 on prior admission of guilt for “repeated death threats of an anti-Semitic nature”, and “disclosure of false information in order to make people believe in dangerous destruction” – offenses punishable by five years of imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
Death threats over Hebrew stickers
Over the days, other isolated acts were deplored by the Paris prosecutor’s office, such as the arrest of an employee at the Rothschild Foundation hospital, who urinated on the walls while making anti-Semitic remarks – tried in immediate appearance and sentenced to a sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment, including 12 months of suspended probation -, or the arrest of an individual for shoplifting, who then made “threatening anti-Semitic” remarks.
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Sometimes, these comments target minor students: on October 14, threats were sent via Snapchat to students in a Jewish school group in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. Still on social networks, a TikTok account was reported to the Pharos platform on October 13, for the broadcast of two videos in which an individual, wearing a mask bearing the image of Bin Laden, welcomed the attack perpetrated a few hours earlier against Professor Dominique Bernard in Arras. The accused accompanied his messages with Palestinian flag emoticons, and also threatened the host Cyril Hanouna in these terms: “wallah, all the harm you have done to Palestine, you are going to pay, you are going to pay, wallah I swear you’re going to pay: that’s just the beginning, Mr. Cyril Hanouna, little kouffar, be very careful about what you do… and the whole Republic be very careful, bunch of kouffars.”
Arrested two days later, the man, already known to the courts for acts of domestic violence, admitted the facts and indicated that he made these videos “to laugh and create a buzz”, explains the Paris prosecutor’s office. Brought to appear immediately on Tuesday, October 17, he was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment with a committal warrant, accompanied by two years of socio-judicial monitoring under penalty of six months of imprisonment.
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In other cases, members of the Jewish community are directly attacked during altercations on public roads: this is the case of a man who, on October 12, was threatened with death several times in a gas station in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, because stickers in Hebrew were affixed to his vehicle. The accused was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment with a simple suspended sentence. “In addition, other complaints for malicious calls or death threats have been filed by certain individuals,” adds the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Threats can also give way to proven acts of violence: this Friday, October 20, around 5 a.m., a couple of octogenarians residing in a building in the 20th arrondissement called the firefighters due to a departure fire at the door of their apartment. Their entrance was the only one to bear a mezuzah, this Jewish object of worship affixed to the entrance to homes. The accused presented himself to the investigators during the findings: those around him declared him schizophrenic and he was taken to the psychiatric infirmary of the police headquarters. The Paris prosecutor’s office has entrusted the 2nd judicial police district with the investigation of the charge of damage due to religion by dangerous means – a crime punishable by 15 years of imprisonment.
Threats around synagogues
It is also specified to L’Express that as of October 20, the National Prosecutor’s Office for the fight against online hatred [PNLHL, créé en 2021 et rattaché au parquet de Paris], was notified of 96 online hate messages of an anti-Semitic nature, or messages of explicit support for Hamas or other terrorist actions. This is particularly the case of the press release of support from the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA), reported to the Pharos platform and for which investigations were entrusted to the Criminal Brigade, or of the remarks made by the deputy La France insoumise (LFI) Danièle Obono calling Hamas a “resistance movement” and reported to the prosecution on October 17. “Investigations continue with investigations by the Pharos platform, referral to the Personal Crime Repression Brigade (BRDP), or Anti-Terrorism Groups (GLAT) within the judicial police districts,” completes the parquet.
Elsewhere in France, numerous anti-Semitic incidents have also been recorded. This Wednesday, October 18, the Epinal public prosecutor announced that a man will be tried in December for “crimes due to religion”, after making threatening calls against the Jewish community in the Vosges. He is notably suspected of having called the Epinal synagogue and threatened to blow up the building, or of harming the physical integrity of the representative of the Vosges Jewish community and the community as a whole. On Thursday, October 19, a 26-year-old Tunisian national was deported to his country after having, on October 7, threatened a person providing security in front of a Lubavitch Jewish prayer center in Cannes.
This Friday, October 20, the La Duchère synagogue in Lyon was also tagged with an inscription in Arabic: “Solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Gaza”. According to information from BFMTV, a Palestinian flag was also hung on a pole in front of the religious building. A complaint was filed in the afternoon. In Strasbourg, a 15-year-old teenager was arrested that same Friday by a CRS after having rubbed the blade of a knife on the metal barriers surrounding the Great Synagogue of Peace, before hiding the weapon in his sleeve. He was placed in police custody and the investigation was entrusted to the judicial police.
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