French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Tuesday said that more than 1,500 anti-Semitic acts and comments have been recorded in the country since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. This comes amid growing tensions in France, home to large Jewish and Muslim communities, as war rages in the Gaza Strip.
“There have been 1,518 anti-Semitic acts or remarks”, Darmanin told broadcaster Europe 1 in an interview. This was a more than three-fold increase compared to the whole of 2022 when 436 anti-Semitic acts or remarks were recorded. “These are mainly tags and insults, but there are also assaults and injuries”, Darmanin added.
Separately in a post on X, the French minister said, “We must avoid as much as possible importing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict onto our soil: French Muslims have nothing to do with the terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas and French Jewish people have nothing to do with the bombings on Gaza.”
Il faut éviter le plus possible d’importer le conflit israélo palestinien sur notre sol : les musulmans français ne sont pour rien dans l’attaque terroriste perpétrée par le Hamas et les Français de confession juive ne sont pour rien dans les bombardements sur Gaza. pic.twitter.com/1lXJBW51W8— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) November 14, 2023
571 arrests so far
Those acts resulted in 571 arrests, the ministry told AFP. In late October, Paris prosecutors opened an investigation into an incident when dozens of Stars of David were daubed on buildings around the city and its suburbs. Darmanin said there had also been anti-Muslim incidents “but they are not on the scale of what we are seeing in terms of anti-Semitism”.
He said that some mosques had received threats of violence. As many as 330 investigations have been opened into anti-Semitic acts and justifications of terrorism since October 7, the justice ministry told the French agency on Monday. On Sunday, more than 180,000 people turned out to march against anti-Semitism in France.
The march took place a day after several thousand people demonstrated in Paris under the rallying cry “Stop the massacre in Gaza”. On October 7, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack into Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 others hostage. Israel has retaliated with a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground invasion, killing more than 11,100 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
(With agency inputs)