Killing of Jewish man puts crime in focus ahead of French vote

The death of a Jewish man killed in a possible anti-Semitic attack has placed crime at the heart of France's presidential election campaign just days ahead of voting.

Published: 5 April 2022 17:21 CEST

Jeremy Cohen was hit by a tram in Bobigny in February, while fleeing from a gang. Opponents of French President Emmanuel Macron say that this was an antisemitic attack that was covered up. (Photo by JACQUES DEMARTHON / AFP)

Pushed by far-right candidate Eric Zemmour, a viral video showing Jeremy Cohen being run over by a tram while being chased by a gang northeast of Paris in February prompted President Emmanuel Macron to weigh into the controversy.

“We have all been devastated by the scenes that have been made public and I want to express my solidarity and my support for the family of Jeremy Cohen,” Macron told reporters on a pre-election visit to Brittany.

He called for “complete clarity” over what happened while urging that Cohen’s death does not become the subject of “political manipulations”.

A member of Macron’s office had also spoken to the victim’s father, who has alleged that prosecutors were slow to take up the case and properly investigate the death.

France has witnessed a number of shocking anti-Semitic robberies and murders in recent years, in addition to jihadist attacks that have seen the Jewish community targeted.

The country votes on Sunday in presidential elections that polls indicate are likely to be a contest between Macron and far-right veteran Marine Le Pen, who is gaining momentum.

Though crime and immigration were major themes during campaigning last year, they have been eclipsed by worries about the rising cost of living and the current war in Ukraine.

Viral video

Cohen’s father, Gerald, told the TMPM show on Canal+ on Monday night that his children had had to put up posters themselves appealing for witnesses.

They tracked down a video showing Cohen being punched and then pursued by a gang of around 10 people, which has since gone viral on social media.

“We didn’t understand what was happening because we had confidence in the justice system,” Gerald Cohen said. “We didn’t understand why we had to collect the evidence, why we had to do all this.”

Zemmour, who is of Jewish origin, tweeted: “Is he dead because he was Jewish? Why has this scandal been covered up?”

The local prosecutor’s office in Bobingy said a probe had been opened to determine the cause of his death, and a second homicide investigation began in late March.

Cohen wore the kippa skullcap as a cultural signifier and was identifiable as Jewish, but his father has also said he might have been targeted because of his “light” mental handicap.

“We can’t rule out an anti-Semitic motive, but we can’t conclude that this was an anti-Semitic crime,” the family’s lawyer Franck Serfati told TPMP.

While Zemmour and Le Pen both suggested the crime had been covered up, hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said “the question that needs to be asked is why families need to do their own investigations.

“Normally it’s the police,” he said.

Bobigny is part of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, France’s poorest area with the highest levels of violent crime on the mainland, according to official statistics.

Zemmour has called it “a foreign enclave” and a symbol of the “colonisation” of France by immigrants.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.