A visibly Jewish teenager was attacked on Sunday evening in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, according to French media reports.
Around 7 p.m. local time, the kippah-wearing 15-year-old was exiting a metro station in Levallois-Perret, a residential area in the Hauts-de-Seine department, when two youths approached him.
“They quickly remove his kippah, but the two individuals turn around and start telling him: ‘And you, the Jew, wait for us, wait for us,’” recounted the victim’s mother to CNews TV. “My son stopped and turned around to look at who these people were who were calling out to him. He then continued to move forward, but one of them managed to grab him by the hood.”
She continued: “They put him in a corner next to another subway exit and told him: ‘Give us your cell phone.’ They ripped off his earphones and then they hit him in the face and mouth.”
A complaint was filed with the police after the attack.
The mother posted a picture to social media of her son’s bloody lips. The city’s former first deputy mayor, Isabelle Balkany, tweeted about the incident with the accompanying image, saying that the two suspects were “of Maghrebi (North African) origin.”
‼️‼️Alerte #Levallois ‼️‼️
Hier soir, ce jeune Levalloisien de 16 ans, qui portait sa kippa, a été violemment agressé par deux individus d'origine maghrébine qui l'ont traité de "sale juif"…?
La Maire étant en pèlerinage à Lourdes avec les élus, espérons que leurs prières… pic.twitter.com/v0h7Z4qrOM— Isabelle Balkany (@ibalkany) October 14, 2024
David-Xavier Weiss, the first deputy mayor of Levallois-Perre, told CNews that “it can happen anywhere in France, at any time. Of course, it happens in areas where there are more Jews. Levallois is the city with the largest Jewish community in France, with 20,000 Jews for 65,000 inhabitants. Of course, the risks are increased in our town.”
The mother reportedly asked her son to stop wearing a kippah.
France, like other countries in Western Europe, has seen a surge in antisemitic incidents following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza.
