Study finds sharp rise in anti-Semitic attacks in France

614 incidents in 2012 represent a 58 percent increase over the previous year, says SPCJ report

20 February 2013, 5:45 am

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Hundreds gather in Toulouse to pay their respects to the victims of Toulouse terrorist Mohamed Merah, March 23, 2012 (photo credit: AP/Thibault Camus)

JTA — France saw an increase of 58 percent in anti-Semitic incidents in 2012 compared to the previous year, according to a report by the French Jewish community.

The report released Tuesday by the SPCJ, the security unit of France’s Jewish communities, showed that 614 anti-Semitic acts were documented in the republic last year compared to 389 in 2011.

“2012 has been a year of unprecedented violence against Jews in France,” according to the report, which referenced the shooting murders of a rabbi and three Jewish children on March 19 by an Islamist radical at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

Incidents in which the victims were accosted physically or verbally on the street witnessed an increase of 82 percent, to 315 last year from 177 cases in 2011, SPCJ said. A fourth of the 96 physical anti-Semitic assaults involved a weapon.

The SPCJ report reflects a near doubling in physical anti-Semitic assaults, of which 57 were documented in 2011.

SPCJ notes two peaks in anti-Semitic attacks in 2012: following the Toulouse shooting, when 90 acts were recorded within 10 days, and after the Oct. 6 bombing of a kosher supermarket in Sarcelles in which two people were lightly wounded, when 28 acts were recorded in the next eight days.