- The Jewish community in France has demanded greater protection
for Jews and their property after a series of weekend attacks which saw
a Marseille synagogue burnt down.
-
- Without government action against the spate of attacks,
Jews would be subject to the kind of anti-Semitism seen in 1930s Germany,
the Union of Jewish Communities in France said.
-
- French President Jacques Chirac has condemned the violence
and vowed to "find and severely punish" the attackers. On Monday
he visited a synagogue in Le Havre as a sign of solidarity.
-
- In the wave of attacks across France, shots were fired
at a kosher butcher's and two other synagogues were damaged. In Belgium,
Molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue.
-
- Ethnic tensions transposed
-
- In Marseille, the prefect, Yvon Ollivier, ordered 120
riot police to secure the 42 other synagogues and 17 Jewish schools in
the city.
-
- "I call on the Jewish community to remain calm.
The state intends to do the maximum to ensure the security of these places,"
he said.
-
- President Chirac is due to meet Interior Minister Daniel
Vaillant to discuss security measures.
-
- Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said he would not "accept
the spread of racism and anti-Semitism in our country".
-
- But Jewish leaders have said that there has been a worrying
rise in anti-Semitism since the escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
-
- They accuse the government of complacency over past attacks.
-
- Without decisive action, Jews would have to consider
they were "living through the warning signs of a fresh Kristallnacht,"
the Union of Jewish Communities in France said, referring to the night
in 1938, when German mobs embarked on a rampage of anti-Semitic violence
with the backing of Adolf Hitler's Nazi government.
-
- The group also voiced concern about anti-Semitism expressed
at pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
-
- The Palestinian Authority's representative in France,
Leila Shahid, condemned the attacks as "unacceptable", saying
"our fight is a national fight".
-
- France has Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities.
-
- In Belgium, the increased tension in the Middle East
has also been blamed for an attack on a synagogue in the Anderlecht district
of Brussels.
-
- "There really is a climate of hostility which is
resulting in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being transposed into the
most troubled districts of our capital," said local mayor Jacques
Simonet.
-
- Series of attacks
-
- In total, over the weekend four synagogues were attacked
and several other Jewish targets singled out, though no-one was seriously
injured.
-
- * The Marseille synagogue was apparently doused in petrol
before being burnt to the ground.
- * About 15 masked assailants smashed two cars into a
synagogue in Lyon and set it on fire. * Petrol bombs were thrown at the
windows of a synagogue in Anderlecht, in Brussels.
- * A man fired a shotgun twice at a kosher butcher's shop
in a village near the southern city of Toulouse.
- * Arsonists tried to burn down a synagogue in Strasbourg,
in the east, but failed to do serious damage.
- * A Jewish school was broken into in Sarcelles, north
of Paris.
- * A Jewish couple was assaulted in the town of Villeurbanne,
in the Rhone region, causing the woman to spend the night in hospital.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1905000/1905360.stm
|
