“Violence is intolerable. Even more so when it is based on a person’s origin,” wrote Dominique de Villepin.
The Prime Minister further informs that “everything has been done to identify and arrest the perpetrators” and goes on to add that “several suspects have already been taken into custody”. Dominique de Villepin assures CRIF that “exemplary sentences will be requested against those who have been guilty of such deeds”.
The Prime Minister went on to tell the Jewish community that one of the priorities on which he will never compromise is “the protection of all our country’s children”.
Anti-Semitism in France and how to prevent it was the keynote of the interview granted by Nicolas Sarkozy to Roger Cukierman on 15 March. The Minister of the Interior referred to a reinforcement of the police presence in front of Jewish synagogues and schools, as well as video surveillance. Roger Cukierman reiterated his request, mentioned again recently at the latest CRIF dinner, to have racist and anti-Semitic crimes taken out of the law governing the press and be included in common law.
Following the aggressions against three young Jewish men in Sarcelles, minister Sarkozy received the victims and their families, local politicians from the town and the region, and the representatives of Sarcelles’ Jewish community.
Nicolas Sarkozy showed his determination to pursue his fight against anti-Semitic acts. The Minister of the Interior called anti-Semitism “a stain on the national flag”. He has announced a reinforcement of local police forces but also of the video surveillance of the community’s buildings.
Saturday 4 March, a man of 28, wearing a kippa, was attacked in the early evening by four youths who insulted him and hit him. Briefly hospitalized, the man is suffering from a “dislocated shoulder”. The four alleged authors of the aggression were arrested shortly after the event and remanded in custody. The victim has lodged a complaint. The investigation will in particular need to determine whether these four youths were also involved in two other anti-Semitic aggressions that took place in Sarcelles on Friday at the end of the afternoon. The son of the rabbi of the synagogue in Garges, aged 17, was hit toward the end of the afternoon by two black men near the synagogue in Sarcelles. He had his nose broken. The second, Yacob, 18, was thrown to the ground later that same Friday evening, “by five men, four of African origin, one North African, who hurled insults and anti-Semitic threats at him,” according to the police. They then went on to steal his cell phone.
In a related case, Gregory X was sentenced to two months in prison for racial insults and will have to pay 1,600 € to his victims; Benoît Y was found guilty of having given three punches. He was sentenced to two months suspended sentence in prison. These two youths, on Friday 3 March, had aggressed a group of young Jews who were on their way to their Talmudic school for Shabbat. Knocking them about, taking away their kippa and punching them, the aggressors hurled anti-Semitic insults at them: “that’s for your dirty Jewish face”, “dirty Jew”, “go and stuff your Sharon”, “you’ll see what Hamas is going to do to you”. Counsel for the defense sought to minimize the facts, considering that it was more a case of “stupidity” and that the aggressors “have no political conscience”. Counsel for the plaintiffs retorted: “That is always the line of defense in this type of case. These acts are quite clearly anti-Semitic and they reveal the darkest side of the human soul.”
Additionally, various incidents with anti-Semitic overtones have been committed in Lyon and Villeurbanne (in the suburbs of Lyon) since Monday 6 March 2006. The regional branch of CRIF has been informed of the situation and is in close contact with the authorities, which it has requested to do everything in their power to arrest the culprits.
CRIF Rhône-Alpes could not help noticing that these acts of violence were committed just a few days after the murder of Ilan Halimi and the incidents in Sarcelles. CRIF Rhône-Alpes calls for the Jewish population to stay calm and promises that it is fully mobilized to ensure that the truth will be known.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the Minister of the Interior, has written to Marcel Amsallem, President of CRIF Rhône-Alpes, following the aggression against a young Jewish boy of 11 as he was leaving his school. The minister expressed his revolt when faced with this aggression and expressed his full support for Marcel Amsallem. He assured him of his full commitment to the protection of the Jewish community.
In a communiqué, CRIF Rhône-Alpes had called the Jewish community to calm and exhorted the authorities to “take strong measures”, referring to “a cascade of disturbing events since the murder of Ilan Halimi.
On Monday 6 March in Lyon, a young Jewish pupil in his third year at a local State secondary school was kicked in the face by four minors, who were arrested and remanded in custody for “gang violence and anti-Semitic insults”. The scene had been filmed by one of the aggressors. Some of the four aggressors were going to the same school as the young victim, said the police. The Chief Education Officer for Lyon, Alain Morvan, denounced the aggression as “inspired by anti-Semitism” and has opened an administrative enquiry. He has lodged a formal complaint, along with the young boy’s family. The Mayor of the city also expressed his profound emotion and assured the family of his support.
A series of anti-Semitic acts has also occurred in Villeurbanne. An anonymous letter of threats has been received by the town’s synagogue, referring to a plan to attack the synagogue with a car bomb. During the night of March 6 to 7, the surveillance video camera of a Talmudic school was broken. A man has been arrested by the police and remanded in custody.
In addition, complaints have been lodged by parents of pupils in a secondary school in Villeurbanne against organised extortion of Jewish pupils.
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