An eight-year-old Jewish boy was attacked by a group of teenage thugs in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles on Tuesday afternoon. The young boy was easily identifiable as a Jew, since he was wearing a kippa.
He was walking to a tutor when two teens approximately 15 years old knocked him to the ground and “struck him multiple times,” according to a police source who spoke with the French AFP news agency. The prosecutor’s office has retained anti-Semitism as a motive in the case, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said.
“Every time a citizen is assaulted on the basis of his age, appearance or faith, the Republic as a whole is assaulted,” French President Emmanuel Macron declared on Twitter in response to the report, noting the child was attacked because he was wearing a kippa. “And it is the Republic as a whole today especially that stands alongside French people of the Jewish faith to fight these vile acts with them and for them.”
Earlier this month, a 15-year-old Jewish girl was slashed in the face while walking home from school in the same suburb. She was wearing her school uniform at the time she was attacked.