Café altercation puts France on alert – Gaza war echoes in Paris suburbs
French authorities have been placed on alert following a confrontation between a Palestinian man from Gaza and a Jewish rabbi in a café in the suburbs of Paris.
The Palestinian man reportedly struck the rabbi with a chair, injuring him in the head. He has been accused of carrying out an assault “motivated by religion,” referring to the rabbi’s faith and the assailant’s nationality.
Although French officials have not explicitly stated that the Gaza war was the cause of the attack, they have strongly implied it.
Authorities reported that the Palestinian suspect was arrested on Friday after assaulting a rabbi with a chair in a café in Neuilly-sur-Seine, west of Paris. He was then sent to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
A major Jewish community organization in France condemned the assault as an “anti-Semitic attack.”
Rabbi Elie Lemel sustained a head injury from the chair thrown at him during a conversation with someone at the café.
The prosecutor’s office has launched a criminal investigation on charges of “aggravated assault with religious motives,” according to AFP.
The accused is reportedly an undocumented Palestinian migrant, in possession of a German-issued permit allowing travel within a specific district in Germany. He is believed to be 28 years old and originally from Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
He is currently undergoing involuntary psychiatric assessment.
The rabbi revealed that he had experienced a similar incident the previous week in Deauville, in northwestern France. Speaking on French television, he said: “I feel like we’re being profiled based on appearance, and that’s heartbreaking.”
He was wearing a traditional kippah and had a long gray beard.
Prime Minister François Bayrou stated: “This is clearly an assault, because the victim’s appearance provoked someone’s anger, hatred, and aggression.”
The French head of government expressed regret that “the current state of society leads to the radicalization of public discourse.”
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau wrote on X that the Palestinian man “has no reason to be in France and must be severely punished and deported.”
On X, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) “strongly condemned the anti-Semitic attack.”
CRIF President Élie Korchia added: “Hostility toward religion must never be tolerated.”
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, various sites and memorials belonging to the French Jewish community—one of the largest in the world—have been subjected to attacks and acts of vandalism.
