’Both aggressors wore black gloves and looked professional, nimble to me. I grabbed the one who was near me, to ask him what he was doing at my house. He then kicked me a few times, leaving me with bruises and a few wounds. ‘If you scream, you’re dead,’ he told me.’’

French Jewish writer Marek Halter was assaulted at his home in Paris by two hooded individuals on Friday night.

“I had dozed off in my chair when I felt a presence and saw a hooded man above me, and another in my doorway,” the writer explained to daily newspaper Le Figaro.

He added: ‘’Both wore black gloves and looked professional, nimble to me. I grabbed the one who was near me, to ask him what he was doing at my house. He then kicked me a few times, leaving me with bruises and a few wounds. ‘If you scream, you’re dead,’ he told me.’’

“They wanted to scare me, warn me,” he said. .

Halter is preparing a new book entitled “A world without prophets” which will be released next month.

The two attackers are said to have passed through a window in his home. Halter, who filed a complaint to police, said the two aggressors did not steal anything. “They took out and left my credit card on the table, to kind of show that this was not what interested them. They also took my keys, as if they intended to come back,’’ he said.

The 85-year-old Polish-born intellectual has been assaulted several times in his life. “Usually, a few anti-Semitic or racist words are shouted but there, nothing, as if they just wanted to warn me.”

According to the author, the forthcoming release of his book in which he attacks the religious “intelligentsia”, would be no stranger to this aggression

On  social networks, Halter received a series of messages of support, including from the Israeli embassy in France, Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, Marlène Schiappa, Minister delegate in charge of citizenship and  Richard Ferrand, President of the National Assembly.