A wave of indignation rose on Wednesday in France after the gang rape and anti-Semitic violence denounced by a 12-year-old girl, who said she was called a “dirty Jew” by her young attackers during her ordeal on Saturday near Paris.
In the midst of the legislative campaign, President Emmanuel Macron denounced the “scourge of anti-Semitism” while Prime Minister Gabriel Attal affirmed that “the fight against anti-Semitism [devait] be that of all Republicans.” Condemnations poured in from the far right to the far left.
On Wednesday evening, hundreds of people rallied against anti-Semitism in the French capital.
“Raped at 12 because she was Jewish”, “Anti-Semitism is not residual”, could we read on the signs of the demonstrators, gathered in front of the town hall in the presence of the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti and other personalities.
Two 13-year-old suspects were charged on Tuesday and imprisoned for gang rape (gang rape) as well as anti-Semitic insults and threats. A third teenager, aged 12, was placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness for the acts of rape.
“Abject”
According to the young victim, these three teenagers approached her last Saturday in Courbevoie, in the Paris suburbs, and dragged her into an abandoned premises at the foot of the La Défense business district while she was in a park near her home. with a friend.
One of the suspects “asked her questions about her Jewish religion,” asking her why she didn’t talk about it and asking her about Israel, a police source said. He also called her a “dirty Jew.”
The teenager was beaten and had anal and vaginal penetration as well as fellatio, according to police sources. One of the attackers filmed the scene and another threatened the victim with death if she reported the facts to the authorities, according to one of these sources.
“During their first appearance interrogation, the three minors made brief spontaneous statements, expressing regret towards the victim without addressing their involvement in the facts,” the public prosecutor said in a press release.
“Sordid”, “abject”: this affair has sparked a torrent of reactions in France, a country which is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe and which has experienced an upsurge in anti-Semitic acts since the attack by Palestinian Hamas perpetrated in Israel on 7 October and the start of the war in the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, President Macron called for a “time of discussion” in schools on racism and anti-Semitism, a proposal freshly welcomed by teaching unions who castigated “a communication stunt” and “instrumentalization of a tragedy in a context of political and democratic crisis”.
“Unprecedented anti-Semitic surge”
Accused of having minimized the extent of anti-Jewish acts, the leader of La France insoumise (radical left), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for his part denounced “anti-Semitic racism” on of the political spectrum, Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally (RN, far right), assured that he wanted to “fight this anti-Semitism which has been affecting France since October 7”.
Leader of the RN deputies, Marine Le Pen attacked the “extreme left” head-on, denouncing a “stigmatization of Jews for months through the instrumentalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
The president of the Central Consistory, Élie Korchia, denounced “a sordid and despicable sexual crime”, while the chief rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia, affirmed that “no one can be exonerated in the face of this unprecedented anti-Semitic surge”. The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, for its part, expressed its “immense emotion” in the face of an “extremely worrying affair”.
The number of anti-Semitic acts exploded in France in the first quarter of 2024, according to government figures, which reported “366 anti-Semitic acts” recorded between January and March, an increase of 300% compared to the first three months of the year 2023.
The far right smoothes its program
11 days before the legislative elections in France, the far right wanted to be reassuring about its foreign policy on Wednesday, while the campaign was hit by this event.
As the early elections of June 30 and July 7 approach, of which it is the favorite, the RN has tried to reassure France’s international partners while its adversaries claim that its arrival in power would lead to an exit from the ‘European Union.
Jordan Bardella, who could become prime minister if his camp wins, also worked to provide guarantees of neutrality by committing to dissolving “all ultra-left and ultra-right organizations”. The RN also announced that it was withdrawing its support from one of its candidates, who had written on Twitter in 2018 that “gas [avait] brought justice to the victims of the Shoah.
President Macron, who called these legislative elections after his camp’s debacle in the European elections on June 9, continues to find the program of the far right “unreasonable” both “financially and in its relationship to politics” .