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CRIME

French police probe knife attack for anti-Semitism

A young Jewish woman has been stabbed in her home in the French city of Lyon, prosecutors said, suspecting anti-Semitism as the motive for the attack.

French police probe knife attack for anti-Semitism
The residential building where a Jewish woman was stabbed at her home in Lyon. Photo: PACHOUD/AFP.

Police are treating the attack as attempted murder, they said, adding that the woman’s life was not in danger and no arrest had been made.

“This act could have anti-Semitism as its motive,” the prosecutors’ office in the southeastern city said late Saturday.

A police source told AFP that, according to the woman’s statement, she opened her door to a person who rang the doorbell and then stabbed her twice. Dressed in dark clothes and with their face partly concealed, the attacker then fled the scene.

A swastika — a symbol much used in Nazi Germany and by neo-Nazis —  was found scrawled on her door, the source said, but police had been unable to determine whether it had been put there ahead of the attack.

The regional branch of the CRIF, the representative council of Jewish institutions in France, quickly condemned the stabbing, saying it had “prompted great concern in the Jewish community”.

CRIF president Richard Zalmati also urged “caution”, saying it was up to the judiciary to determine whether there had been an anti-Semitic motive to the attack.

The victim’s lawyer, Stephane Drai, told the BFMTV broadcaster that her family’s Jewish faith was known in the neighbourhood.

Since an attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7 that left 1,400 dead, there have been 857 anti-Semitic acts in France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said last week, and 425 people arrested.

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CRIME

Teens charged in France over plot to attack Jewish targets: judicial source

French prosecutors have charged a 19-year-old man and a youth in the Paris region with planning a "terrorist" attack on Jewish targets, a judicial source told AFP on Friday.

Teens charged in France over plot to attack Jewish targets: judicial source

While no details on the pair have been released, French anti-terrorist investigators have expressed increased concern over the young age of some suspects detained in recent months for planning militant attacks.

The 19-year-old has been charged with “terrorist conspiracy” to commit attacks and the “acquisition and possession of arms for a terrorist enterprise,” said the judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

READ ALSO: Anti-Semitism fears stalk Jewish voters’ choice in France

The youth aged under 18 was detained on June 13, the source said.

The pair made contact on social media and were planning a “a violent action notably aiming at Jewish targets,” said the source without giving details on the plot.

Anti-terrorism investigators say a growing number of youths have been held in recent months for preparing attacks.

READ ALSO: French election breakdown: TV debates, polling latest and anti-Semitism

“This is a necessarily worrying phenomenon,” senior anti-terrorist prosecutor Olivier Christen said at an evidentiary hearing on Wednesday.

French politicians have also condemned a growing number of attacks on the country’s Jewish community, the biggest outside Israel and the United States.

Outrage has been expressed over the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a park in the Paris suburbs last Saturday. Two 13-year-old boys have been charged with rape and making anti-Semitic insults.

Several protest rallies have been held in Paris and other French cities over the case which comes as France prepares for a national election in which the far-right National Rally party is tipped to make major gains. 

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