Several hundred protesters protested antisemitism and “rape culture” in Paris after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was gang raped over the weekend, causing widespread indignation.
Following Saturday’s gang rape, several anti-racist, rights, and feminist groups called for a demonstration.
According to police sources, the juvenile complainant reported that three males aged 12 to 13 approached her in a park near her house in the Paris neighbourhood of Courbevoie on Saturday.
According to one police source, she was led into a shed where the suspects assaulted her and “forced” her to have sex “while uttering death threats and antisemitic remarks”.
France has the greatest Jewish population of any country save Israel and the United States.
At Thursday’s rally, Arie Alimi, a lawyer recognized for combating police brutality and vice-president of the French Human Rights League, stated that voters must prevent the far-right from capturing power and “installing a racist, antisemitic, and sexist policy.”
However, he expressed sadness over hearing “antisemitic remarks from a part of those who say they are on the left.”
Dominique Sopo, president of the anti-racist organisation SOS Racisme, described it as “an antisemitic crime that chills our blood.”
Anne-Cecile Mailfert, president of the Women’s Foundation, stated that the episode mirrored an increase in antisemitism after Hamas’ October 7 strike, which sparked the Gaza conflict.
However, it also emphasized “a rape culture to which young people are more likely to subscribe,” having been “bottle-fed pornography,” she said.
Ner Sfez, a 24-year-old Jewish woman, stated that she came to condemn a crime “at the intersection of sexism and antisemitism.”
Hundreds of people protested in Paris and Lyon, central-eastern France, after the incident was reported in the media.
A rival march was held later Thursday in the French city of Rennes to protest the rise of the far right ahead of a national election this month.
The event ended when scores of teenage demonstrators threw bottles and other missiles at police, who responded with tear gas.
According to local authorities, seven arrests were made among the approximately 80 persons who lined the route of the march through the city centre.
