French Man Threatens to Commit Murder at Jewish School
Image by Getty Images
Police in Marseille arrested a man who brandished a weapon in front of a Jewish school and threatened to commit murder.
The man, who was not named, approached the Gan Ami school while carrying the weapon, shouting: “I will kill all of you,” an unnamed police source told the Le Figaro daily. The man, 48, was drunk and was arrested soon after making the threats, according to the report.
The police source said the man lived next door to the school, and that he was annoyed at a truck that was parked outside the school, which blocked traffic and prompted other drivers to sound their horns. The incident happened at 1 P.M. on Sept. 10 as parents were arriving to pick up pupils and take them home.
The incident occurred amid a major effort by police to provide protection to Jewish institutions and especially schools. Beefed up following a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic attacks in 2014 compared to last year, the tight security is part of a heightened state of alert which began in 2012, when an Islamist murdered three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse.
From Jan. 1 to July 31, the SPCJ security unit of France’s Jewish communities documented 527 anti-Semitic incidents compared to 276 in the same period of 2013, SPCJ reported in a statement issued Sept. 11. In all of last year, SPCJ documented 423 anti-Semitic incidents.
SPCJ said the increase owed to a proliferation of attacks on Jews over Israel’s summer conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
Last week, French police arrested a 26-year-old man on suspicion that he threw stones at police during an anti-Israel rally in Paris on July 19. Earlier this month, a 34-year-old Tunisian man received two months in jail for a similar offense.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
