Click here to watch: Synagogue, Kosher Markets Attacked Again During anti-Israel Protest in Paris
French youth defying a ban on a protest against Israel’s Gaza offensive set fire to cars and garbage cans in a Paris suburb after a calm demonstration today. According to Le Figaro, a synagogue was attacked with a Molotov cocktail, but did not catch fire. Stores and nearby restaurants were also attacked. The unrest in Sarcelles, north of Paris, is the second time in two days that pro-Palestinian demonstrations turned violent. The demonstration, like the one in Paris yesterday, had been banned to ensure peace. Tension mounted as scores of Jewish youth, some armed with iron bars, encircled a synagogue to protect it. The rampage comes hours after France honored some 13,000 Jews rounded up 72 years ago, most kept in a cycling stadium before being sent to Auschwitz. Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounced a “new form of anti-Semitism” on the Internet and spreading among youth in working-class neighborhoods.
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France’s interior minister slams “intolerable” acts of anti-Semitism after a rally against Israel’s Gaza offensive descended into violence, pitting an angry pro-Palestinian crowd against local Jewish businesses. “When you head for the synagogue, when you burn a corner shop because it is Jewish-owned, you are committing an anti-Semitic act,” Bernard Cazeneuve tells reporters outside the Sarcelles synagogue. In the Paris suburb sometimes nicknamed “little Jerusalem” for its large community of Sephardic Jews, the rally on Sunday descended into chaos when dozens of youth — some masked — set fire to bins and lit firecrackers and smoke bombs. Eighteen people were arrested after looters wrecked shops, including a kosher foodstore and a funeral home as protesters shouted: “Fuck Israel!” “We have never seen such an outpouring of hatred and violence in Sarcelles,” says the mayor Francois Pupponi. “This morning people are stunned, and the Jewish community is afraid.”
Source: Tims of Israel
