Posted on 08/23/2004 7:40:46 AM PDT by SJackson
PARIS, Aug 23 (AFP) - The French government declared "war" on racism Monday, one day after arsonists torched a Jewish centre in Paris and scrawled swastikas inside.
"It's on the really strong orders of the president of the republic (Jacques Chirac) that the government declares war on racism, on all racism," Justice Minister Dominique Perben told radio station RMC Info.
On Sunday, unidentified vandals broke into a Jewish centre in an eastern district of the capital to daub swastikas on two fridges inside and anti-Semitic slogans such as "Without Jews we would be happy," and "The world would be pure if there no more Jews".
The centre, located on the ground floor of an apartment block, was then set on fire, completely gutting it.
An Arabic-language statement posted on an Islamic web site claimed the attack in the name of Jamaat Ansaw Al-Jihad al Islamiya (Group of the Holy Islamic War Supporters) and said it was "in response to racist acts by Jews in France against Islam and the Muslims" and "as a simple response to the racist and savage acts by Jews in Muslim countries like Palestine."
Police said they were investigating the claim, but that it was not a priority among the leads they were following up.
French officials from Chirac on down immediately condemned the attack, which highlighted a four-year surge in anti-Jewish acts in France, and vowed to track down those responsible and punish them severely.
Perben rejected an assertion by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France that the government was "lax" on anti-Semitic offenders.
He said state prosecutors had standing orders to systematically appeal sentences seen as too light in such cases, special appeals judges had been appointed and penalties for racist crimes had twice been increased.
"It's important that the law finds those guilty and that they are judged harshly," he said.
Officials said those responsible for the arson attack faced 20-year prison sentences if caught. Paris police chief Jean-Paul Proust and Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin have vowed to deploy significant manpower and resources to tracking them down.
The number of anti-Semitic acts committed in the first half of 2004 has jumped, according to interior ministry statistics, with 135 acts of physical violence against Jews and 95 against north African and other ethnic groups.
Incidents this month included a swastika painted in front of the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, and swastikas and anti-Semitic messages painted on 60 Jewish graves in Lyon allegedly by a neo-Nazi Frenchman who turned himself into police.
France is home to Europe's biggest Jewish and Muslim communities, estimated at 650,000 and five million respectively, out of an overall population of 60 million.
The head rabbi for Paris, Joseph Sitruk, called on Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to make the fight against racism and anti-Semitism in particular a national priority for his government.
He told AFP he was to meet Perben on Thursday to examine ways that perpetrators of anti-Jewish acts are handed sentences "that are truly dissuasive".
"Nobody, not even the authorities, have accurately judged the size of this wave of aggression against the Jewish community. We thought that, as is sometimes the case, it would calm after a few weeks.
"But today it is time to put in place other measures," he said.
... a war on racisim...in France? Sounds suicidal.
The French government declared "war" on racism Monday...and immediately surrendered.
What these idiots forget to say is that the two arabs who attacked a Jewish student at the lycée Montaigne during the year were just reintegrated by the French courts who said that expulsion was too harsh a sentence for screaming dirty Jew and agressing their fellow student...
This is their "war"... Boy, I am so happy I left France in the 60s...
Like Arafat declaring war on terrorism!
The Jews in France should evacuate to Israel. While they're being attacked in Israel at least there they have a Government that isn't wimpy.
The French government declared "war" on racism
We could start a pool. When will they surrender, a dollar a guess.
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