Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) called on all Jews living in France to leave and move to Israel "immediately" after a rise in anti-Semitism.
"Altogether I have to advocate to our brothers in France: Move to Israel as early as possible," Sharon told a meeting of an American Jewish association in Jerusalem.
"That's what I say to Jews all around the world but there (France) I think it's a must. They have to move immediately."
Sharon praised the French government for taking action against the "spread of the wildest anti-Semitism" but said that it was struggling against the impact of the growth of the Muslim community.
France is home to Europe's biggest Jewish and Muslim communities, estimated at 600,000 and five million respectively.
According to French interior ministry statistics, the number of racist incidents has soared this year.
There were 135 physical acts (vandalism, arson, assault, and attacks or attempted attacks) against Jews in the first half of 2004, compared to 127 for all of 2003, according to the statistics.
For the same period, there were another 95 acts against other ethnic groups -- mainly those of North African Arab background -- compared to 92 for all of last year.
France was gripped by a bout of soul-searching about anti-Semitism last week when a 23-year-old woman initially told police that a gang of six youths had accosted her on a Paris suburban train, slashing her clothes and drawing swastikas on her stomach after mistaking her for a Jew.
But she later admitted to police that she had made up the entire incident and begged forgiveness in a televised apology.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said in the aftermath of the alleged attack that "anti-Semitism is a disgrace. We want to fight this sort of intolerable racism."
"There is also something wrong in our society: it's the indifference to violence," he said.
French President Jacques Chirac this year excluded racist crimes from the traditional blanket clemency for prisoners he signs every July for Bastille Day.
Recent racist acts in France have included the son of a rabbi being beaten by five youths near his Paris home, a rabbi in another suburb being struck and insulted, and a 15-year-old Jewish boy being assaulted at an ice-skating rink near the capital.
Jewish and Muslim tombs in cemeteries around France have also been defaced with graffiti, notably neo-Nazi slogans and symbols.
The upsurge of attacks and insults against France's Jewish population started three and a half years ago, after the beginning of the current Palestinian uprising, or intifada.
Most acts have been blamed on disgruntled members of the country's Arab minority, with fringe far-right groups also held responsible. |
