A 12-year-old Jewish girl, who lives in Courbevoie, a suburb near Paris, filed a complaint for the crime of rape against three suspects in the act, her age, in a suburb of Paris. The suspicion is the revenge of a former girlfriend, who was angry with her for not telling him that she was Jewish and called on his friends to hurt her. Medical tests the girl underwent confirmed that she had been raped. She was forcibly taken to the hangar, during the rape they threatened to kill her, called the girl a “dirty Jewess” and even photographed her. One of them put a lighter in front of her and threatened to burn her.
The French newspaper Le Parisien reports on the investigation into the rape case of a 12-year-old girl, which has an alleged anti-Semitic background. The suspects in the case are also minors. The girl arrived at the police station accompanied by her parents, and filed a rape complaint.
The girl arrived at the square near her house in the company of a friend, when three teenagers aged 12, 13 and 14, including a former girlfriend, took her to an abandoned hangar, where the three teenagers beat her and insulted her because of her Jewishness, and then committed rape on her. The three were arrested and brought before an investigating judge before an indictment was filed.
The boys confessed to the act and claimed that they acted out of revenge. A former girlfriend, 12 years old, was allegedly angry with her for not telling him she was Jewish. Moreover, on his phone, the investigators found anti-Semitic images, including a burnt Israeli flag. Another suspect accused the girl of what was defined as “inappropriate comments regarding Palestine.”
The minors are suspected of the offenses of aggravated rape, aggravated sexual assault, attempted extortion by threats, violation of privacy, death threats, violence and insults, with the last two offenses being aggravated. Despite their age, due to the seriousness of the transfers, the French prosecutor’s office requests detention for the minors even before the trial.
Reactions in France to rape:
Officials from across the political spectrum in France today condemned the rape, and French President Emmanuel Macron asked at the cabinet meeting that talks on anti-Semitism be held in schools in the coming days.
Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right “National Union” party, which is expected to make great gains in the elections at the end of the month, said that since October 7, an anti-Semitic atmosphere has prevailed in France: “I have never had tolerance for any expression of racism,” he emphasized.
Demonstration in Lyon, France, following the rape of the Jewish 12-year-old. “Macron allowed it to happen”, photo: AFP
The leader of the radical left and anti-Israel Jean-Luc Melanchon, who heads the “Rebellious France” party, tried to focus attention on the behavior of the attackers, and less on the anti-Semitic motive. “I express solidarity with the victim and her family and sincere participation in their grief.” Alongside this he read: “Let’s not use the terrible crime and the suffering it causes in the media.”
Lawyer Eli Corcia, president of the Consistoire, which brings together the Jewish communities in France, said that since October 7, French Jews have been living “in an intolerable atmosphere of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.” He emphasized that from the moment the rapists learned that the girl was Jewish, they began to pity her and even said that they were “avenging for Palestine.” He said that the community surrounds the girl’s family, takes care of her needs and protects her.
Following the publication of the rape, about a thousand people, most of them Jews, demonstrated in Paris’ Town Hall Square in protest of the rape. The demonstrators waved signs demanding an end to violence against Jews.
“In the France of 2024, a girl is raped because she is Jewish,” read one of the signs, which was carried by Alexandra, who lives in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. “You can’t go on like this,” she says. “I have a childhood at this age. How will we live? We will wake up every morning and ask ourselves if some madman will take my daughter to a hangar and rape her? People need to wake up and understand what is happening around them.”
Julia, who lives in the heart of the city and whose name is Jewish, also came to the demonstration in Paris this evening. “I’m not afraid to wear the Star of David and the abductees disk, I wear it with pride,” she said. She expressed disappointment with the number of participants: “There should have been thousands of people here, thousands of mothers of all colors and religions. Where are they?”. She and Rebecca, another protester, started talking when they noticed that they were both wearing the abductees’ badges.
Rivka lives in the heart of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in the 19th district, and says: “I have been insulted twice in the street, once by a boy of Arab origin and once by a man with European appearance. Ignorant people import the conflict here. But it started before. How is it possible that the criminal who threw Sara Halimi We were not protected from the window and this is the result.” As much as possible, she tries to deal with anti-Semitism with the help of humor: “A 14-year-old boy called me ‘Mein Kampf’ when I was with the children and grandchildren. It hurt me, but I told myself that at least he has a general knowledge of the culture.”
A group of 17-year-old French Jewish boys also came to the demonstration: Isabel, who was accompanied by her mother, and two boys named Noam. They stood covered with the French flag and carried the sign: “This could have been your sister” and “I was raped at the age of 12 because she is Jewish.”
Rabbi Chaim Cressier, Chief Rabbi of France and head of the Conference of Rabbis of Europe , said that since the terrorist attack by Hamas terrorists on October 7, there has been a sharp increase in the number of cases of hatred and violence against Jews throughout France: “1,600 cases of violence were recorded in three months, compared to an average of 400 cases In the year before the October events.”
About the rape, he said: “Last Saturday, a Jewish girl, only 12 years old, was raped by a group of boys, according to the suspicions based on the girl’s Jewish origin. Every case of rape, regardless of the background, is an abominable case, which has no place in our world. But a case The rape of the girl, who was born to Jewish parents, reminds us of the times when the Jewish people were persecuted just because we were born into a different religion.”
