President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday denounced the "scourge of anti-Semitism" after authorities 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 anti-Semitism, has sent shock waves through the Jewish community and added to tensions ahead of a snap election that could bring the far-right National Rally to power for the first time.
The girl 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 anti-Semitic remarks", a police source told AFP.
Her friend managed to identify two of the attackers.
The girl said she had been called a "dirty Jew", another police source said.
One of the boys asked her questions about "her Jewish religion" and Israel, the source added, citing the child's statement to investigators.
The three boys were arrested Monday.
On Tuesday evening, two of them, both aged 13, were charged with gang rape, anti-Semitic insults and violence and issuing death threats, and remanded in custody.
The third boy, 12, was also charged with anti-Semitic insults and violence and issuing death threats, but not with rape. He was allowed to return home after being charged.
Macron calls for dialogue
Macron told government ministers that a "scourge of anti-Semitism" threatens French schools, a source close to him said.
He "spoke solemnly and seriously about the scourge of anti-Semitism" in a cabinet meeting, the source said.
The source added that the president called for "dialogue" about racism and hatred of Jews in schools to prevent "hateful speech with serious consequences" from "infiltrating" classrooms.
The leaders of France's Jewish community, the largest of any country outside Israel and the United States, expressed horror over the attack.
France, which is home to Europe's largest Muslim community, experienced a surge in anti-Semitic acts after Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel and the start of Israel's retaliatory campaign in Gaza.
France's chief rabbi Haim Korsia wrote on X that he was "horrified" and that "no one should be excused in the face of this unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism".
Courbevoie's centre-right mayor Jacques Kossowski condemned "an abject act" and called for the perpetrators to be met with the full force of the law "whatever their age".
Anti-Semitic acts in France increased threefold in the first months of 2024 compared to the same period a year ago, official figures show.
Of the 1,676 anti-Semitic acts recorded in 2023, 12.7 percent took place in schools.
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