French courts jail Muslim, white supremacist in separate anti-Semitic incidents

In two separate court cases in France, a Muslim man and a white supremacist were given prison sentences in connection with anti-Semitic behavior.

The Muslim, a 21-year-old identified only as Mohammed, received one year in prison for participating in the September armed robbery of a young man wearing a Star of David pendant in a Paris suburb. The victim, identified only as Younnes, is an Arab person converting to Judaism, Le Parisien reported Monday.

During the robbery, in which Mohammed and at least one accomplice took part, one of the perpetrators called Younnes a “dirty Jew.”

Younnes told Le Parisien that he will no longer wear Jewish symbols on the street but is going forward with his conversion.

The white supremacist, a 52-year-old man from the western city of Brest, called an employee of a local social services office where he collects his welfare payment “a dirty Jewess” in December before performing a Nazi salute on his way out of the office, according to the man’s conviction of a hate crime last week by a tribunal in Brest. He was given a two-month prison sentence.

A poster reading ‘Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Racism, Not in Our Name” during a gathering decrying anti-Semitism at Place de la Republique in Paris, February 18, 2019 amid an upsurge in anti-Semitism in France. (AP/Francois Mori)

He told the judge that his actions were to express “pride for belonging to the great race” and that he “has something against the Jews,” the Ouest France newspaper reported.

These rulings took place after this week saw the ongoing trial of fourteen men and a woman over the 2015 attacks against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris that marked the beginning of a wave of violence by the Islamic State terror group in Europe.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.