Hundreds protest in Paris against antisemitism after rape of 12-year-old Jewish girl
President of Women’s Foundation tells rally incident reflects rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7, as well as ‘a rape culture to which young people are more likely to subscribe’
PARIS — Several hundred people protested against antisemitism and “rape culture” in Paris after the gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl at the weekend sparked nationwide outrage.
Various anti-racist, rights and feminist groups had called for the demonstration following Saturday’s gang rape.
The teen complainant told police three boys aged between 12 and 13 approached her in a park near her home in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie on Saturday, police sources said.
She was dragged into a shed where the suspects beat her and “forced” her to have sex “while uttering death threats and antisemitic remarks”, one police source told AFP.
France has the largest Jewish community of any country outside Israel and the United States.
At Thursday’s protest, Arie Alimi, a lawyer known for tackling police brutality and vice-president of the French Human Rights League, said voters had to prevent the far-right from seizing power and “installing a racist, antisemitic and sexist policy.”
But he also said he was sad to hear “antisemitic remarks from a part of those who say they are on the left.”
Dominique Sopo, president of the anti-racist group SOS Racisme, says it was “an antisemitic crime that chills our blood.”
Anne-Cecile Mailfert, the president of the Women’s Foundation, said the incident reflected a rise in antisemitism since Hamas’s October 7 attack that started the Gaza war.
But it also highlighted “a rape culture to which young people are more likely to subscribe,” having been “bottle-fed pornography,” she added.
Ner Sfez, a 24-year-old Jewish woman, said she came to protest a crime “at the intersection of sexism and antisemitism.”
Hundreds had already protested on Thursday in Paris and Lyon in central-eastern France after the incident was reported in the news.
A separate rally took place later Thursday in the French city of Rennes on Thursday against the rise of the far-right ahead of a national election this month.
The rally ended after dozens of young demonstrators threw bottles and other projectiles at police who responded with tear gas.
Local authorities said seven arrests were made among about 80 people who took positions in front of the march through the city center.
The rally was called by unions opposed to the far-right National Rally party, which is tipped to make major gains in the legislative election. The first round of voting is on June 30.
“We express our absolute opposition to reactionary, racist and antisemitic ideas and to those who carry them. There is historically a blood division between them and us,” Fabrice Le Restif, regional head of the FO union, one of the organizers of the rally, told AFP.
President Emmanuel Macron called the elections after the far-right thrashed his centrist alliance in European Union polls. The far-right and left-wing groups have accused each other of being antisemitic.
