France President Nicolas Sarkozy, shown here speaking at the European People’s Party conference in Marseille on Dec. 8, 2011, has announced several measures to clamp down on right-wing and Islamic extremists following the March 19 attack on on the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse. (European People\’s Party via CC)
(JTA) — The following is a timeline of anti-Semitic attacks in France, with some statistics, since October 2000.
October 2000
The firebombing of a Paris synagogue and a Jewish shop in Toulon are among nearly 100 anti-Semitic incidents reported in France following the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada. The incidents include similar attacks on several other synagogues and Jewish institutions, including at least one school.
October 2001
Vandals ignite two trailers used as classrooms at the Pardes Jewish School in Marseille. The attack is part of a wave of anti-Semitic incidents that continues for months. Increased violence against Jews prompts French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to announce the creation of a program in French schools devoted to the memory of the Holocaust and crimes against humanity.
March 2002
Three anti-Semitic attacks in one weekend rattle the French Jewish community. No one is hurt when a man opens fire in a kosher butcher shop near the southern city of Toulouse. Then, vandals drive two stolen cars into a synagogue in Lyon, setting the sanctuary on fire. In another incident, a French Jewish couple is injured in the southern part of the country. Days later, a Jewish athletic club in Toulouse is the target of an arson fire, one of several across the country.
June 2003
The Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism says that more than 250 anti-Semitic incidents took place in France in the previous six months, and more than 2,000 since the start of the second intifada in October 2000.
June 2004
A Jewish student is stabbed outside the Mekor Yisrael Yeshiva in Epinay-sur-Seine, north of Paris.
March 2005
Year-to-year attacks on French Jews and Muslims and their institutions nearly double — from 833 in 2004 to 1,565 — according to a report issued by France’s National Consultative Commission of Human Rights.
May 2005
A French appeals court finds Le Monde, the country’s leading daily newspaper, guilty of “racial defamation” for an article on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is harshly critical of Jews.
January 2006
French teen Ilan Halimi is kidnapped, tortured and murdered by a gang of French Muslims.
September 2008
A 17-year-old and two other teens are beaten while wearing kipahs in an attack in Paris on the same street as another Jewish teen in June. French police immediately deem the attack a racist act.
January 2009
During Israel’s military operation in Gaza, anti-Semitic incidents in the region range from assaults against teens and adults to the firebombing of a synagogue in downtown Saint-Denis. A kosher warehouse in Paris is targeted by arson, though no motive is established.
September 2009
A French Jewish school in Marseille is targeted in a firebomb attack. No one is injured by the bombs, which are placed around the Bramson ORT campus.
April/May 2010
Two Jews, one elderly, are attacked over the span of a few days.
March 2012
A gunman on a motorcycle opens fire on a Jewish school in Toulouse, killing four people: Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two young sons and the young daughter of the school’s principal. The shooter, Mohammed Merah, later dies in a standoff with French police.
May 2012
Three Jews are attacked in southeast France, and a report by the French Jewish community’s protection service says the Toulouse massacre has encouraged anti-Semitic attacks in France.
September 2012
A package bomb explodes in a kosher grocery store.
October 2012
A Jewish youth is attacked on the Paris metro.
