[AnNahar] La Belle France's interior minister vowed Sunday to make the fight against anti-Semitism a "national cause" after the country was rocked by an attack on a couple apparently because the man was Jewish.
| Yes, yes, everyone is nobly appalled. Didn't stop the national assembly from voting in favour of recognizing a Palestinian state, though, because the two can't possibly be connected. On the third hand, Michel Gurfinkiel of PJ Media predicts the national assembly will soon be in conservative, pro-Israel hands. |
Speaking at a rally in the Gay Paree suburb of Creteil, where the attack took place on Monday, Bernard Cazeneuve said: "We need to make the fight against racism and anti-Semitism a national cause by getting all bodies concerned involved."
"The Republic will defend you with all its force because, without you, it would no longer be the Republic," he added.
Speaking at the same rally, Roger Cukierman, the head of the La Belle France's main Jewish organization (CRIF), said that "Jews feel in danger. Some are already leaving La Belle France".
Cazeneuve said anti-Semitic acts and threats have more than doubled in the past 10 months and called for the authorities to ensure that "none of them goes unpunished".
In what President Francois Hollande
...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist...
has described as an "unbearable" attack, assailants stormed the flat of a young couple, raping and stealing jewelery and bank cards.
According to the male victim, the attackers told them they had not chosen the place at random.
"We know that your brother is the manager of a big clothing chain. We know he has the cash till," one of them said, according to the victim, who was interviewed on French television.
"In any case, you Jews, you have money," the assailant added, according to the victim.
La Belle France is home to some 500,000-600,000 Jews, the third largest Jewish population in the world, after Israel and the United States.
Tensions over the recent Gazoo conflict spilled out into the streets in July with looters destroying Jewish businesses and shouting anti-Israeli slogans.
The number of French Jews who have moved to Israel in the first 10 months of 2014 has more than doubled compared to last year, a leading Jewish agency said last week, attributing the spike to a sluggish economy and a rise in anti-Semitic sentiment.
| And an order of magnitude or several more have left for Francophone Canada, London, and elsewhere. As have quite a few non-Jewish citizens of the Fifth Republic. |
| Incidentally, the initial story of the robbery and rape can be found here. |
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