in Courbevoie, a new gathering against anti-Semitism after the rape of a 12-year-old girl struggles to unite

A few hundred people gathered again on the morning of Sunday June 23 in front of the Courbevoie cultural center, two days after a first demonstration against anti-Semitism. A gathering which comes after the attack and rape of a 12-year-old girl, of Jewish faith, last week in this town of Hauts-de-Seine, in the Paris region, by three young people aged 12 and 13. Several personalities from the Jewish community took to the microphone to denounce the increase in anti-Semitic acts in recent months.

The majority of the several hundred people gathered were of Jewish faith, which deplores Yaël, a demonstrator. “I remember, when I was little, there was the Carpentras affair [l’affaire de la profanation d’un cimetière juif en 1990, qui a suscité une immense émotion à l’époque]. There were a million people in the streets when there was a desecration of a cemetery with someone being dug up and impaled.she remembers. Today, since the explosion of acts of anti-Semitism, there are not many people on the streets. So I’m waiting for a citizen surge so that there are more people in the streets, so that we can fight against this anti-Semitism which is exploding and which is not a Jewish affair.”

Next to Yaël, Charles came with his little boy. When he talks about the rape of this little girl, we feel disgust, anger and fear rising within him. “Young Jews cannot go to Jewish schools peacefully without being attacked in the street. That parents are obliged to be trained to monitor the areas around Jewish schools, that we must be trained to monitor the around the synagogues…, he whispers. So yes the police cannot be everywhere, it’s true, but we expect a minimum from the public authorities, always.”

Many of the demonstrators also pointed out the current political climate, the tensions, the violence of the debate, which they believe are not conducive to this republican surge against anti-Semitism that they are calling for.