“Since the end of the day Saturday, since the terrorist massacres in Israel, there have been more than 100 antisemitic acts, essentially graffiti – swastikas, ‘death to Jews,’ calls for an intifada against Israel,” said French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

 

According to the Interior Minister, 237 reports on the Pharos online platform have been forwarded to the judicial authorities since the Hamas attacks on Israeli territory.

Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7,  102 arrests in direct connection with anti-Semitic acts or apology of terrorism, including 27 foreigners”, have been made in France, according to French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

According to the Minister, 237 reports on the Pharos online platform have been forwarded to the judicial authorities.

“Just this morning, the DGSI (the body in charge of internal security) made two arrests, one in eastern France, the other in southwest France”, Darmanin explained after a Security Council meeting held at the Elysée Palace “to take stock of the terrorist threat.”

The meeting took place three days after the attack on a high school in Arras where a teacher was killed  by a radical Islamist.

“Since the end of the day Saturday, since the terrorist massacres in Israel, there have been more than 100 antisemitic acts, essentially graffiti – swastikas, ‘death to Jews,’ calls for an intifada against Israel,” the minister said. .

Online, “hatred is surging,” Darmanin added, with more than 2,000 cases of antisemitic speech reported to a French online watchdog force.

France is home to some of Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations and conflicts in the Middle East have often lead to tensions. The minister said the government has decided to heighten police protection of Jewish sites, including schools and synagogues.

“It’s important that all French people of Jewish faith know they are protected,” Darmanin said as he and Education Minister Gabriel Attal visited a Jewish school near Paris.

Some 10,000 police are protecting 500 sites, Darmanin said.

Attal said pupils of Jewish faith had faced problems in their schools, including a pupil in the wider Paris region who had been attacked by fellow pupils who ripped his t-shirt. Any such incidents would be referred to judicial authorities, he said.

With several French-Israeli citizens believed held hostage by Hamas, Macron pledged that France would protect its Jewish citizens and be ’’ruthless toward all those who bear hate,″ and noted concerns about hostility toward France’s Muslims too.