A protest in Paris against French President Francois Hollande
turned on Sunday to an anti-Semitic demonstration and ended in clashes between
police and protesters.
AFP reported that several thousand people marched through
Paris in a "Day of Anger" against Hollande. Security forces used tear
gas to disperse several hundred youths who lobbed police with bottles,
fireworks, iron bars and dustbins.
The march was organized by a group of some 50 small and
mainly right-wing organizations and, while it failed to attract bigger
anti-Hollande movements, Kol Yisrael radio reported that it was attended by
neo-Nazi movements and Muslim extremists.
The demonstrators chanted anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli
slogans, used the ‘quenelle’ anti-Semitic gesture that was invented by
controversial comic Dieudonne and sang the anthem of the Nazi collaborators
during World War II, according to Kol Yisrael.
Organizers claimed a turnout of some 120,000 people, however
police estimated there were 17,000 people at the protest, reported AFP.
Some called for France's withdrawal from the European Union,
while others urged the respect of freedom of speech, a reference to the
government's recent decision to ban Dieudonne’s show because of its
anti-Semitic content.
The local Jewish students union, the UEJF, condemned
"anti-Semitic slogans and Nazi salutes" by some protesters.
"This 'Day of Anger' has turned into a day of
hate," its president Sacha Reingewirtz told AFP.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls condemned the violence
"by individuals, varied groups from the extreme and ultra-right, whose
only goal is to create unrest".
The protest took place on the same day that new statistics
on anti-Semitism in Europe were presented to the Israeli government by the
Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home).
The statistics were based on a poll conducted by the
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. The poll notes that the rise in
anti-Semitic activity had led many European Jews to avoid expressing their
Judaism - and to refuse to report violent incident to authorities.
The online survey conducted by the organization revealed
that in 2013, 23% of respondents refrained from attending Jewish events or
religious services for fear of being attacked on their way there; 38% are
afraid to wear religious symbols in public; and 66% view anti-Semitism as
having a major and constant impact on their lives.
The statistics were presented one day after two high-profile
anti-Semitic incidents made headlines worldwide. On Saturday, an employee of
the Majdanek concentration camp museum in Poland was charged for hate crimes,
after he distributed anti-Semitic and anti-Israel posters in Lublin.
Later that day, pigs' heads were sent to the Israeli embassy
and a synagogue in Rome - with derogatory messages about the Holocaust and
references to Zionist figure Theodor Herzl inside.
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