French denial

President Chirac goes to the main Paris synagogue this evening to attend a service for Ilan Halimi, the 23-year-old man who was tortured to death over three weeks by a band of young residents of a housing estate in the southern suburbs. Meanwhile Youssouf Fofana, 26, their alleged leader, is being flown back from the Ivory Coast, where he had fled.

Chirac's presence is intended as a strong signal that the state has got the message that Halimi was probably kidnapped and murdered because he was Jewish. This official recognition of the anti-semitic nature of an odious crime is part of a bout of soul-searching about the racism in France's midst, especially among the young of the immigrant ghettoes of the city outskirts. What is surprising is that it has taken so long for the politicians and media to face up to what was obvious to anyone who followed the affair.         

Halimi was the fourth Jew to be targeted by the gang, who used flirtatious young women as bait. He was the first to be successfully abducted. The gang sent messages via a rabbi and suggested that the synagogue collect a ransom because "Jews are rich". They photographed their victim in Iraq-style hostage scenes and they read out passages from the Koran to his parents when making their ransom demands. Police found religious tracts in the flat where they held and tortured Halimi.   

Yet, out of political correctness and fear of stirring unrest on the estates which went on the rampage last October, the establishment spent over a week denying the anti-semitic angle.  Last week, after police were aware of all the above evidence, the Paris prosecutor still insisted that "no element supports any link between this murder and anti-semitic words or actions".  Racial hate charges have now been added to the kidnapping, torture and murder charges that have been brought against the 15 gang members arrested so far.  But when Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, confirmed the race angle in parliament on Tuesday, he explained the anti-semitism as a simple "confusion of ideas". The kidnappers, who happened to be youths from Muslim backgrounds, had picked a Jewish victim not out of religious or political hatred but because of their belief that "Jews are rich", said Sarkozy. 

His words reflected the reality that, for the disaffected immigrant youth of  the estates,  anti-semitism is part of the ordinary mental landscape. Or as Libération put it today: "The hatred of the Jew has emerged from the field of the unbearable and become acceptable, especially in the eyes of numerous young people." The newspaper was still, however, observing the politically correct colour-blindness that is exercised in France. The "numerous young people" to whom it was referring are of course inhabitants of the ethnic estates who are imbued with the crude stereotypes of the Islamist street.      

Now, 10 days since Halimi's body was found, the Paris commentariat is getting round to criticising the establishment refusal to face up to the nature of the case. "The authorities must, without any taboos, avoid playing down this aspect with the motive of not setting communities against one-another," le Monde said today.   

Comments

[Derek Sinclair]

About time! How many more Jewish people will be targeted or murdered before European politicians, generally, admit that the vast upsurge of anti-semitism in Europe is primarily due to Islam and has little to do with far right nutcases. When I say Islam I do not mean extremist Islamic youth as 'extremist' and 'youth' merely represent further get-out clauses for the views of mainstream Islamic communities throughout Europe. One needs only to read the findings of various polls to realise this. The way these communities are constantly pandered to appears simply due to their propensity for extreme violence if crossed. In my book this equates to a society where the rule of law and freedom of speech simply do not exist anymore.

[Sarah Bernkopf]

A superb article, thankyou.SB

[sebastian]

This tragic and chilling case has uncovered what looks like a form of inept official social engineering that went finally wrong, as it usually does. Engineering in the sense that the crude tools of denial and wilful blindness were used to refashion the offence's external image - from an ugly racist assault by Muslims to something easier on the eye; and official because the French authorities were tinkers to the artless refurbishment. However, such PC re-branding could not hide the deed's underlying reality: the attack was anti-Jewish; and that this unwelcome sentiment has surely migrated from the Muslim world (where it's approved of) to Europe (where it's deplored). Moreover, with the exposed underlying comes the glaringly obvious: the French authorities have been deceitful and foolish.

[Hugh HUBBLE]

This anti-semitism is far too ingrained to be considered influenced by the rise of Islam. It has been with us, to our shame for centuries, and little is admitted, let alone written about, or taught.

[Sandrine]

ok; sorry for disturbing you, but as I understood the gang tried to kidnap not only jews but other people also (one or two white guys). And please, don't say that it was a RACIAL act. They did not want to kill a jew because he was a jew, but to kidnap a jew in order to have money (to me it's not really the same). That's it.

That's why I don't understand why everybody makes such a story about that. I'm black, from the West Indies, and I hope that if it were a black man, chirac would have also received the family and that everybody would have cried and demonstrated in the street the same way.

In France, it is soooooooo horrible to do something against a jew, even if it has nothing to see with this fact (by the way how do you recognise a jew in the street?), but against a black or an arab person, well, there's no big deal then. (see what happened with the two boyz in Clichy and the reactions of sarko (for ex) after their death...)

Don't misunderstand me, I find this crime really horrible, this guy has suffered a lot and nobody deserves that.

And if I decide to demonstrate to say never again, it won't be because it's a racial crime (which I do not think it is), BUT because this crime is clearly INHUMAN. Whoever the boy was.

[Sarah]

Anti-semitism is well-known in France. How many European countries endure the defilement of Jewish cemetaries? In France it happens, if not regularly, too often to deny that there is a strong anti-semitic sentiment in French society. The racial blindness of the French Establishment is a disgrace. When will they come to terms with the evidence that their social policies towards immigrants and their famillies have not worked, will not ever work and are making the situation ever worse? Sarkozy needs to let the populace know that such barbaric racial acts are not tolerated under any banner.

[Cecilia]

Anti-semitism isn't the one prominent feature in the mental landscape of these youths, it would be more correct to speak of anti-white racism and anti-rich racism: as Jews often fall in both these categories, they're often targeted by muggers, but people from the middle or the upper class are regarded with just as much hate, and in fact, people from the middle or upper lower class are targeted all the more often because it's easier for people from the estates to have access to them, on the public transport for instance.
Since I've "fallen out" with my rich family (divorced parents), I've been doind Mac jobs to keep myself and save the money to go into university one day, and my colleagues (and my various chiefs!) have been very agressive because of my social backgound (and I'm not a Jew). Basically they view me as a moneybags and think that I can squeeze money out of my family whenever I choose, so I've had several colleagues threaten to beat me up if I didn't give them money, i've been involved in a couple of fights, and at one point I had to ask one of my white colleagues to act as a bodyguard. So I really do not feel integrated in the lower classes...
The trouble is, people from the housing estates think the only way to make money is to take it from the rich and redistribute it to the poor, they don't realise that some of the rich do work to earn all that money. They talk about reeancting the French Revolution and the Communist Revolution, taking the money away from rich people and giving it to poor people, while they're already living off the State, and if they would only avail themselves of the grants given to them, they could make something out of their lives, only, they're too lazy.
When I explain to my colleagues that, besides payong income tax and giving money to carefully chosen charities, I'm saving to go to university, as THEY did with full-time grants between 18-25, and so I don't want to "lend" them the money I'm earning, they always start: "But you were born in a rich family, that's unfair, you must be made to pay for this". Of course, they can't get at my parents or my half-brother, who are really wealthy, so they must needs pick on me, while I'm sometimes earning less than they do, and don't receive any help from my parents when I'm between two jobs.
These people are born jealous, their parents brought them to believe that, no matter how hard someone works to achieve something in life, it is unfair if they raise themselves a wee bit higher than the couch potatoes, and the only way to remediate this is to steal from them what they have earnt. It's even worse when people have inherited something from their parents, and it's really not Jews alone that are targeted, each and everybody is susceptible of arousing these people's jealousy: in wealthy districts, children, teenagers and students are sometimes targeted by muggers on their way from/to school.
I think our social workers etc. need to stop pampering "disadvantaged" people and start holding them responsible with what they do with their lives, instead of blaming "Society" for it. All the resources spent on them would be better used by middle-class people (or upper lower class, who do pay income tax), who are really fed up of funding these ever-greedy people and still risking being assaulted by them.

[Rémy]

I am a french jew but I have never had any problems in France because of my jewish origins. The idea that the French as a whole and the french state are tolerant of anti-semistism is outrageous. Last year, the number of anti-semitic acts in France has actually lowered (see for yourself : http://www.crif.org/?page=articles_display/detail&aid=6309&returnto=articles_display/list&artyd=10)
The english indignation over french anti-semitism sounds a bit funny to me, because the only place where I remember having been mocked and insulted for my origins was England, and it was not because I am jewish.

[W Blow]

The article by Charles Bremner "Anti-Semitic Killers" wanted money, about the torture and murder of a young jew was very interesting.
Charles why did you not let your readers know in print or in your "weblog" that the murder is a Muslim-Why?

Is it to protect our sensibilities or are you displaying a bizzare Political Correctness censorship??

Either way it`s a pretty silly way to report a terrible event.

GIVE US THE FACTS-Do not mollycoddle us.

WK Blow

[david]

I want to give enorm credit to the population of bagneux ,who have manifested in the streets in solidarity with the halimi family.
i don't like the mischaracterization of the banlieues the anglo-saxon press has put on entire populations.
for the enormous majority, these people
no matter of their social conditions, are dignified, and far from the so-called "lawlessness"(dixit cnn) that this places are reduced to.
and for the PC critic, i find it absolutely absurd, that no british newspaper has published the famous cartoons.
i would advice the journalist responsible of this blog to report on the charlie-hebdo story, which in the middle of the fanatic fever , has sold more than 500 000
paper of a masterpiece of freedom of speech, becoming for the time, the most influential newspaper in france, and maybe in continental europe.
for the record, dear sandrine, you can be jew and not have money.
you know ,we're not all bankers.
and also , i would like to remind you that to be a jew is not a religious identity. i'm athée, and so are a majority of my "community".

[Robert Marchenoir]

Sandrine, your comparison between "doing something to a jew" which is "soooo horrible", and the death of the two youths in Clichy, is wildly off the mark, to put it mildly.

We are speaking here about a jew who was tortured and murdered, and if that is not "soooo horrible", I do not know what is.

On the other hand, the two youths of Clichy died victims of their own stupidity. Thinking you can fight against 20 000 volts, despite high fences and huge danger signs, well, that's what I call macho brainlessness drawn to a max.

And please let's stop that stupid discussion about whether the police was chasing them or not. That's perfectly irrelevant.

The police did not shoot at them (which could have happened in scores of other countries). They did not force them to climb into the power station.

So we have two young people refusing to obey the law and stop when police ask them to (according to the people who pretend to defend them and insist there was a police chase).

If this was the case, they were very wrong to break the law in this way to begin with.

Then they deliberately expose themselves to a mortal danger, and die as a result.

And the government is responsible? Give me a break.

It's high time everybody should take responsibility for their own actions in this country, including racially discriminated youths in destitute neighbourhoods.

As for government representatives -- and generally French white people -- demonstrating their sorrow and grief when black people die in horrible conditions, of course this happens. That was the case when several run-down hotels burnt in Paris recently.

And there were no homicidal intent in most of these fires which were just accidents, contrary to Ilan's death.

So let's not pitch blacks against jews, jews against muslims, or whatever community against another. That would really be a disservice to everybody.

[ND]

Chic ! Chic ! It's raining comments ! At last. But i'm very disappointed by them. Anyway, quantity is what is important, not quality. It seems that questions of relations between 'communities'worry a lot in Britain, as much as in France. British multiculturalism is not the answer either, this is a statement of an important man of Anglican church who is black. Tariq Ramadan (just 'invited' in Britain), in an article in Le Monde said the dichotomy between words and facts about races/religions/social relations in Britain. What about the Sweet Cowardice about the Danish cartoons ?

[Robert Marchenoir]

Very interesting and thoughtful comment by Cecilia. Appalling, too.

Funny nobody ever reads such stories in Libération or Le Monde. Any chance of getting some of the French mainstream media to write about the link between anti-white racism, crime and the nanny state?

[La protestation hurlante]

Sarah said:

Anti-semitism is well-known in France. How many European countries endure the defilement of Jewish cemetaries?

*****************************

As a Frenchman deeply tired by all the Anglo-saxon and neocon-inspired tommyrot on "French" antisemitism, I will not be kind with you.

Sarah, your assertion is asinian at best, or malevolent. In how many European countries are there so many Jewish cemetaries?

The very fact that there are 600.000 Jews of all ilks (Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrahim) is the first proof that Jews are faring well in France. Certainly they are not thriving as well as in New York, yet it is a safe land with its opportunities. The second one is that very very few of them are listening to Sharon's sirenes which tell them to emigrate to Israel.

Otherwise, there is indeed a native historical antisemitism which does not go beyond the ones you will find in other Western countries. The fact that the French population has an extremely low ethnocentrism and a completely stifled nationalism is the culprit that makes it powerless in front of "colored" antisemitism.

If other more recent constitutives of the populace think ill about Jews, you will have to open books like "The Bell Curve", "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" or "Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis" in order to understand the untractable and un-PC explanations.

When England will have five millions Pakistanis, you will get the point about "English" antisemitism ...

[Elisabeth Jachwitz Andersen]

Lets get the facts right. The gang was made up of all types from various racial and religious persuasion, including White Caucasian Christian Europeans, Black Sub-Saharian Muslims and Christians
and Arab North Africans. I doubt very much as Charles Bremner puts it that they 'read out passages from the Koran to his parents when making their ransom demands.' As a Scandinavian Jewish women married to a Muslim, I am getting sick and tired of almost every news story involving those of Muslim origin having an anti-Islamic spin on it. Surely, we are in the process now of demonising and isolating entire Muslim communities throughout Europe much like the way Jewish communities were demonised in the past. Whilst the crime was particularly disgusting, one should remember that all racist murders are abhorrent.

[John Gregory Flinn]

Your blogs about race/religion always generate heated debate. It's clearly a subject of great concern to people, especially as relations between the various racial and religious communities seems to be deteriorating daily. Yet none of the mainstream politicians will address the issue except to defame it as extremist!

The Halimi case in question is typical of what is commonplace today, but hardly reported. Discrimination of, and attacks on ethnic europeans by third-world immigrant gangs in Europe. Most western governments deny this is a problem or ignore it, or obfuscate the causes because they fear the consequences. The media are as bad, and seem to conspire to under-report such crime.
The reasons centre on our wealth, and their envy of it. This has obvious racial overtones because of the origins of third-world immigrants. It happens at the street level as in this case, and on a grand scale where our feckless governments simply give our wealth away to third-world immigrants as welfare and services.
Despite assertions to the contrary in the light of the election of Hamas, Europe has just given millions of Euros to the Palestine Authority. Where is the incentive for these two warring parties to ever reach a settlement when they receive such support from America and Europe?
All of this is noted by the millions of people outside the prosperous West.They are going to seek entry in increasing numbers as long as they can.
To the Islamists such wealth, and its access by immigration, is an opportunity provided by Allah to be seized in the name of Islam!
This may sound dramatic - even paranoid, but the British 'high-priest' of racism Trevor Phillips, has also noticed something, because he has just issued a statement calling on all Islamists who are pressing to establish 'Sharia Law' in Britain to leave!

It is a given, and incumbent upon all immigrants to Europe to adapt to the mores and culture of the host nation. (Note I say adapt, not adopt, so that, for example, muslims may bring in their own religious beliefs but not the institutional anti-Israeli and jewish enmity that so disfigures their origins.) However it is clearly evident that many third-world immigrants are really counter-colonists who take advantage of the welfare and services largesse available, but, especially muslim migrants, aim to stay seperate within the host nation.

Being racially colour-blind is far less politically correct than the multiculturist menace in Britain. Where a totalitarian regime is developing with racial quotas, self-censorship, racial mixing on TV, positive discrimination, protection and appeasement of racial/religious sensibilities (except ours), erosion of free-speech, hijabs and burqas as de rigeur for muslim women, racial 'awareness' indoctrination as 're-education' for 'erring' public services , etc, etc.

[Robert Marchenoir]

To Elisabeth Jachwitz Andersen: most people would like the social fabric of their country to be, presumably, like your marriage -- harmony between different people.

Unfortunately, facts are sticky. Islamic literature was, indeed, found during police searches after Halimi's murder. One member of the gang told the victim he was torturing him because he was a Jew. And anti-semitism has, indeed, become commonplace, a lingua franca of the French underclass, regardless of its race or origin. It also happens that large numbers of the said underclass have roots in muslim countries.

But, more to the point, anti-semitism is fashionable within a fraction of the population, not unlike the way black american gangster "culture" (strong quotation marks needed here) has become fashionable among youths of all skin colours.

[Robert Marchenoir]

I hope nobody will feel I'm serial-posting, but I thought some people might be interested by this post I've just come across, on the subject of French anti-semitism among the underclass (it's in French):

http://www.hebdo.ch/indexBlogs.cfm

It's written by a French resident of North African origin. He describes the reaction of the audience in a suburban theater near Paris, showing the movie "Marock" by Leila Marrakchi (French-Moroccan herself). At the minute the muslim girl falls in love with the jewish boy, insults, popcorn and soft drinks are hurled towards the screen. Showings get cancelled for fear of further disruption.

Comments one youth from the neighbourhood: "Once again, Islam is offended". And another one: "I'm sure a Jew is behind all that".

Any further proof needed?

[coco]

those comments simply give another piece of evidence of the french denial. One's personal experience isn't enough to deny a reality. You can read "les territoires perdus de la république" or dozens of testimonies that don't allow any doubt on antisemitism in France. regarding the statistics, evenif they show a slight lowering of antisemitic offenses, they still show a very disturbing fact : jews are overrepresented among the victims of racist agressions. I mean, physical agressions. (Excuse me for my poor english BTW)