Hundreds of people demonstrated this Friday in front of the town hall Courbevoiein Hauts-de-Seine, France, to show their support for the 12-year-old Jewish girl who was the victim of gang rape.
The day before, a demonstration organized against anti-Semitism in the Place de la Bastille in Paris brought together some 500 peoplereported the Paris Police Headquarters.
“This meeting was made just for this young woman and her family“Declared the councilman, taking shelter under an umbrella to protect himself from the rain. “Courbevoie is always a quiet town. She couldn’t imagine this could happen. Some monsters did this. Even if they are not Courbevoisians, they are monsters anyway,” he added.
In the demonstration, organized by the mayor of this municipality of Altos del Sena, Jacques Kossowskiseveral political personalities participated, including the Government spokesperson, Prisca Thevenot; and the president of the Ile-de-France region, Valerie Pecresse. “Antisemitism is an absolute abomination. Our determination to fight him must be unwavering,” said Pécresse.
For the president of the Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France, Yonathan Arfipresent at the Courbevoie protest, is urgent “sound the alarm” and “send a message to French society” against anti-Semitism.
“The explosion of anti-Semitic acts in our country since October 7 must stop,” he declared; while he added: “We must look at this phenomenon clearly if we want to combat it effectively.“.
For its part, Dominique Sopopresident of SOS Racisme, said: “Anti-Semitic violence makes our blood run cold“.
Meanwhile, the activist Anne-Cécile Mailfert analyzed: “This anti-Semitic violation is the symptom of two hatreds that combine: an increase in anti-Semitism in France since October 7 but it is not the only hate speech that explodes in our society“, he indicated. And he pointed to a “rape culture that young people are more likely to subscribe to” because they are “fed porn”.
French Justice charged two 13-year-old teenagers by gang rape and threaten to kill a 12-year-old Jewish minor near Paris, in a context of concern about anti-Semitism. The victim reported on Saturday night the events that occurred in Courbevoiea city located northwest of Paris.
The minor explained that three teenagers accosted her and dragged her to a shedwhen he was in a park near his home with a friend, according to a police source.
The suspects beat her and “imposed anal and vaginal penetrations, fellatio, while they threatened to kill her and hurled anti-Semitic insults at her,” this source said.
His friend managed to identify two of the attackers. The three teenagers were arrested and taken into police custody on Mondaybefore going to court on Tuesday, the prosecutor’s office said.
The justice decreed preventive prison against two of the teenagers for gang rape, death threats, insults and anti-Semitic violence. The third defendant, 12 years old, is accused of all crimes, except rape, according to the public ministry.
The attack shook the Jewish communityin a context of concern in France over the increase in anti-Semitic acts since the bloody attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 in Israel, which responded with a deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The French president, Emmanuel Macrontold his ministers that a “scourge of antisemitism” threatens French schools.
Macron “spoke solemnly and seriously about the scourge of anti-Semitism” in a cabinet meeting, said a source in his government, calling for a “dialogue” on racism and hatred of Jews in schools to prevent “hate speech with serious consequences” HE “infiltrate” in the classrooms.
For his part, the chief rabbi of France, Haïm Korsiait was said on the social networkhorrified“for this”despicable act” and denounced “an unprecedented avalanche of antisemitism”.
Anti-Semitic acts soared in Francewhich hosts the largest Jewish community in Europe, in the first quarter of 2024 to 366, an increase of 300% compared to the same period in 2023, according to official figures.
Aggression also occurs in a tense electoral context in Francewhere polls project a victory for the extreme right in the legislative elections of June 30 and July 7.
The far-right and right-wing oppositions, and the president’s centrist alliance Emmanuel Macron They accuse the France Insoumise party (LFI, radical left) and its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon of being “anti-Semitic.”
The leftist alliance New Popular Front, which includes LFI, has the fight against anti-Semitism in its electoral program. Its main leaders denounced the aggression.
“Horrified by this rape (…) and everything it reveals about the conditioning of male criminal behavior from an early age and anti-Semitic racism,” Mélenchon wrote on the X network.
