(JTA) – The French Jewry umbrella group CRIF condemned a militant Jewish group for a revenge attack in suburban Paris on an Arab man that has led to calls to attack Jews.
CRIF said in a statement Tuesday that it “condemns the June 2 confrontations at Saint-Mande, that are very probably consequent to the unacceptable attack on a young Jew last Friday. These incidents are extremely serious.”
The street fight happened Sunday night in Saint-Mande, a suburb east of the French capital, and led to the hospitalization of a young Arab man identified only as Mounir, according to a statement disseminated Monday on social media by LDJ, the French branch of the Jewish Defense League.
Though outlawed in Israel and in the United States for its militia tactics, LDJ is not illegal in France.
The wounded man was brought in a coma but has since recovered, according to the statement.
The Jewish men who participated in the street fight were part of what LDJ called its “response” to attacks Friday and Saturday against Jews in the area. The Jews attacked over the weekend sustained minor injuries.
Following the events, “calls to take revenge against the Jews are currently circulating in the form of cellular text messages,” according to CRIF, which wrote that “only the police and justice authorities are to deal” with such assaults.
Meanwhile, unidentified parties carved a swastika into a door of the office of the Union of Jewish Students at Pantheon-Assas University in Paris on May 31. A similar incident happened there in March.
