|
French woman cried wolf, but anti-Semitism in France "is real"
A young French woman who provoked a national outrage after she reported being accosted on a commuter train by men who mistakenly identified her as a Jew, fabricated the entire story, police said yesterday. "But this event should not be used to distract attention from the very real problem of anti-Semitism in France, a problem this French government is well aware of and committed to fighting," Jewish officials said.
| Yeah. Except that she's a nut. Next time, when it happens for real, the victim will also be dismissed as a nut. |
The 23-year-old woman, identified by the press as Marie Leonie, told police on Friday that a group of six men attacked her on a suburban train north of Paris. She said the attackers slashed her clothing with knives, lightly wounding her in the process, and drew swastikas on her stomach with a marker. The assailants also reportedly overturned the stroller of her 13-month-old child before they got off the train. Police began to doubt the account when video surveillance cameras did not record the presence of any men fitting Leonieâs description, and when no passengers on the train came forth to collaborate her account. A friend of Leonie said that the woman had a history of filing claims of being assaulted. "The first declarations of the young woman reveal that her accusations were lies and that she had been making it all up," the public prosecutorâs office said in a statement. The woman admitted to "having made knife cut marks on herself, cut off a lock of her own hair and drawn swastikas on her body," it said.
Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-07-15 |
