France in shock after the group rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in an anti-Semitic attack

In the middle of the French electoral campaign and with anti-Semitism as the protagonist in the mutual accusations between the candidates, rape of a 12-year-old girl by three other boys between 12 and 14 years old, who almost burned her under the insults of “dirty Jewess” in Courbevoie, a Parisian suburb, horrifies France.

French President Emmanuel Macron denounced during the Council of Ministers “the plague of antisemitism” after the rape.

According to government sources, he also invited to organize in the coming days “a moment of debate” on racism and anti-Semitism in schools, so that “hate speech that has serious consequences does not infiltrate” educational institutions.

On Saturday, the teenager spent the afternoon with friends before one of them walked her home. Crossing Henri Regnault Park, she encounters two boys, one of whom she vaguely knows, who block her path and force her to follow them to an old, disused daycare center.

A third boy joins them. He insults the young woman about her religion, calling her a “dirty Jew,” according to the teenager’s statements to the police.

After the insult came unprecedented violence. They throw her to the ground, beat her, photograph her. One of the boys approaches her cheek with a lit lighter and threatens to “burn her down.”

They forced her to practice vaginal and anal penetration, as well as fellatio. Then They threatened to kill her if he talked to the police.

Abandoned in that daycare, the teenager returned home. She revealed the horror she had just suffered to her parents, who alerted the police.

Her friend, who was present when the two young men took her with them, was able to give a detailed description of the suspects. Video surveillance footage also allowed investigators to confirm the presence of the three suspects near the crime scene.

The investigations, first entrusted to the Courbevoie police station and then to the territorial family protection brigade, They allowed the three suspects to be detained on Monday.

They were accused of “aggravated rape, aggravated sexual assault, attempted extortion, invasion of privacy, death threat, violence and insults”these last two crimes being aggravated by their commission due to the religious affiliation of the victim.

Two of the three teenagers, 13 years old, received an arrest warrant from a liberty and detention judge. One was imprisoned in the Nanterre preventive prison and the other in Porcheville, in the Yvelines. The third, 12 years oldwas released with a provisional educational judicial measure, the prosecutor’s office said.

“Horrified”, “monstrous”, “abominable”… The rape of the girl aroused great emotion among the protagonists of the electoral campaign in France.

The reactions were accumulating this Wednesday after the accusation of the 13-year-old adolescents for anti-Semitic gang rape.

All political protagonists condemned the events.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France Insoumise who has been accused of being anti-Semitic because he refuses to consider Hamas a terrorist group, said be horrified” for the rape.

The leader of France Insoumise (LFI), regularly accused by his political opponents of making ambiguous comments about anti-Semitism, asked “not to transform this crime and the suffering it causes into a media spectacle“.

Mélenchon’s reaction provoked the ire of the Minister of Justice. “How dare you? You have no face,” said Éric Dupond-Moretti in X. “Your recurring comments fuel hatred that leads to the worst,” he added.

Following the reaction of the leader of France Insoumise, the outgoing deputy of the Somme, François Ruffin (LFI) also denounced in X a “horrible anti-Semitic violation.”

“This heinous crime should shock us deeply, because it reveals: the crude machismo of young men for whom women’s bodies are a thing, which belongs to them. Anti-Semitism for whom Judaism is a stain, an affront to honor,” she wrote.

“Justice must be done,” said LFI MP Mathilde Panot in X, saying she was “absolutely horrified by the ordeal imposed on this young woman.”

“Punitive rape with anti-Semitic motives is a crime of rare seriousness,” he added. “Hatred towards others is a poison that kills our consciences, hurts the body and destroys human dignity,” launched the representative of Insoumise France, Clémentine Autain, on the same social network.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure criticized on Tuesday the “scourge” of “anti-Semitic hatred.”

“The fight against anti-Semitism must be waged without weakness and without respite,” he insisted.

“In the face of this horror story, words fail me,” the leader of the Greens also reacted on Wednesday, Marine Tondelier. “Anti-Semitism and violence against women are open wounds in our society. We must face this reality and act decisively,” she called.

For the national secretary of the French Communist Party (PCF), Fabien Roussel, this “atrocious crime reminds us once again that anti-Semitism corrupts our society and grows dangerously,” he wrote in X.

The right-hand man of the mayor of Paris and candidate for the legislative elections under the banner of the New Popular Front, Emmanuel Grégoire believes that “the fight against anti-Semitism must be an absolute priority. Absolute.”

There are also numerous reactions on the right. LR president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, says she is “horrified,” she wrote on “vigilance and determination.”

From the National Regrouping (RN), the president of the party, Jordan Bardella, denounced from the Eurosatory defense fair “an atmospheric anti-Semitism that we must combat.” “Everyone must be fully aware of this on June 30 and July 7,” he said, referring to the dates of the next legislative election.

Marine Le Pen denounced in X “the stigmatization of Jews for months by the extreme left.”

The Lepenist National Regrouping (RN) announced on Wednesday that it had withdrawn its support for one of its candidates, Joseph Martin, due to an anti-Semitic tweet. Martin, candidate for the first electoral district of Morbihan, wrote on the social network on October 22, 2018: “The gas brought justice to the victims of the Shoah.”

The tweet was still online Wednesday morning. Since then has been deleted.

“He no longer has the support of the National Regrouping. He is suspended and will be summoned with a view to his exclusion,” declared the RN to Agence France-Presse.