Diners were tucking into their falafels in Pitzman, a celebrated kosher restaurant in the Jewish district of Paris when the owner got a call to say a mob of youths was heading his way. He just had time to pull down the metal shutters before 30 or so gathered outside, screaming “Hamas resistance”, “Israel assassin”, “Death to Jews” and “We’re going to slit your throats”. Inside, customers cowered in fear for 20 minutes before police intervened to break up the mob.
The incident, on Wednesday, came at the height of the most traumatic week for Europe’s Jews in recent times. In the past few days, at least eight synagogues were attacked in France; like Germany, the country is struggling to keep the Middle East conflict off its streets.
As France’s 500,000-strong Jewish community looked at the headlines in horror, the media grappled with the question of who is responsible for the upsurge of anti-Semitic violence in a country still scarred by the memory of the Nazi occupation.
Crucially, it is very different from the anti-Semitism of the past. Gone, mostly, is the threat of the old-fashioned, tattooed, neo-Nazi skinheads. They have been replaced by second or third-generation immigrants from France’s former colonies in north and west Africa.Among the 15,000 or so pro-Palestinian protesters who marched through Paris to denounce Israel’s raids on Gaza, most came from the impoverished, crime-ridden suburbs where their families have lived since their arrival in France, and where almost every balcony has a satellite dish to capture Arab television channels.
Some reports described them as Muslim radicals, but this is simplistic. Their influences are a patchwork consisting of Islamist propaganda, the French far right, the extreme left and a sense of social disgruntlement nourished by unemployment.
Take, for instance, Ahmed, a 29-year-old youth worker who is a member of a gang calling itself the Gaza Firm, which consists mainly of supporters of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), the capital’s football club.
He said 30 or so members of the firm, most wearing black T-shirts, had joined the march to protect anti-Israeli protesters from the Ligue de Défense Juive (Jewish Defence League), an extremist organisation of Jews involved in numerous violent incidents. Ahmed gave the impression that he would have been quite happy to meet the league for a punch-up in the same way that PSG fans regularly clash with supporters of Olympique de Marseille.