French boys charged with antisemitic rape of 12-year-old girl, calling her ‘dirty Jew’

French authorities have charged two 13-year-old boys with the gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a Paris suburb.

The attack, suspected to have been motivated by antisemitism, has sent shockwaves through the Jewish community and added to tensions ahead of a snap election that could bring the far-right National Rally party to power for the first time.

The girl has told police she was approached by three boys aged between 12 and 13 while she was in a park near her home with a friend and dragged into a shed on Saturday evening in the northwestern suburb of Courbevoie.

The suspects beat her and “forced her to have anal and vaginal penetration, fellatio, while uttering death threats and antisemitic remarks,” a police source tells AFP.

Her friend managed to identify two of the attackers.

The girl said she had been called a “dirty Jew,” another police source says.

One of the boys asked her questions about “her Jewish religion” and Israel, the source adds, citing the child’s statement to investigators.

The three boys were arrested Monday.

Last night, two of them, both aged 13, were charged with gang rape, antisemitic insults and violence and issuing death threats, and were remanded in custody.

The third boy, 12, has also been charged with antisemitic insults and violence and issuing death threats, but not with rape. He has been allowed to return home after being charged.