More than 1,000 antisemitic attacks have taken place in France since the start of the Israel-Hamas war Oct. 7, the country’s interior minister said Monday.
“The number of antisemitic acts has exploded, with more than 1,000 antisemitic acts, 1,040 to be precise,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said in an interview.
So far, French law enforcement agents have arrested 486 suspects, according to Darmanin. “In fact, 102 of the 486 foreigners who committed antisemitic acts have had their residence permits withdrawn, were placed in a detention center and expelled from France,” he added.
“Ten thousand police and gendarmerie sentries have been mobilized to protect 900 schools and synagogues visited by French Jews,” Darmanin also said.
🇫🇷 France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that more than 1,000 anti-Semitic attacks have been carried out in France since October 7th.
102 foreigners who commit anti-Semitic acts have been expelled from the country, according to Darmanin. pic.twitter.com/VKWVv68Zkg
— NoComment (@nocomment) November 6, 2023
Paris police said there were 257 antisemitic attacks and 90 arrests Sunday in the city, with the attacks ranging from “young kids who say very serious things” to “people who are more rooted in defending the pro-Palestinian cause and who get out of hand,” Euronews reported.
Forty French people are accounted dead and seven are missing as a result of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, per Euronews. (RELATED: Whole Country Bans Pro-Palestinian Protests)
“To all our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith: I fully appreciate your anguish in the face of the resurgence of anti-Semitic acts,” French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said Monday in a separate interview. “The Government is doing everything in place to protect you. We won’t let anything go. Anti-Semitism has no place in the Republic.”
À tous nos concitoyens de confession juive : je mesure pleinement votre angoisse face à la résurgence des actes antisémites.
Le Gouvernement met tout en place pour vous protéger. Nous ne laisserons rien passer.
L’antisémitisme n’a pas sa place dans la République. pic.twitter.com/iUdO4cD0qM
— Élisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) November 6, 2023
More than half a million Jews live in France, host to the largest Jewish population in Europe and the third-largest in the world, per the Euronews report. Israel is home to about 7.2 million Jews, the largest Jewish population in any country and 46% of world Jewry, while the 6.3 million-strong Jewry in the U.S. is the second-largest in the world, per The Times of Israel.
France recognized Israel’s right to exist as early as 1949, supports the creation of a Palestinian state and regards the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal under international law, per the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs website.