Free Republic

An Islamic internet site operating from Paris reported early Monday that a radical Muslim organization was behind the fire in the Jewish community center in Paris on Sunday, Army Radio reported. Arsonists burned a Jewish community center in eastern Paris before dawn Sunday, leaving behind graffiti with anti-Semitic messages such as "Jews get out," police said. French officials condemned the fire, while opposition leaders called on the government to take action in response to the latest anti-Semitism acts in France and not just to use verbal condemnations, Army Radio reported. No one was hurt as flames tore through the center...

To: French Consulate in Los Angeles Dear French Nation: Shalom! As a Jew, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I would like to thank your President Jacques Chirac for saying that Israel needs to be convinced that peace is better than war. Never mind that peace (shalom in Hebrew) is the most common word in Jewish prayers. That it is endlessly repeated in synagogues, when greeting or taking leave, when getting up or going to bed. Never mind that shalom (peace) is mentioned 77 times in the Torah, and 275 times in the Jewish...

President Jacques Chirac has asked media to avoid offending religious beliefs as a French newspaper today reprinted caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that have sparked violent protests in the Muslim world. Chirac said during a Cabinet meeting that he condemned “all obvious provocations likely to dangerously kindle passions”. “Everything that can offend the convictions of others – religious convictions in particular – must be avoided,” the French president said in remarks quoted by government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope. Earlier today, satirical French weekly paper Charlie-Hebdo reprinted the Mohammed drawings originally published by a Danish newspaper, as well as a new caricature...

Last October 16, Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told a summit of Islamic leaders that the “Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.” He added, “1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews,” therefore Muslims must unite against the Jews for a “final victory.” And who pleaded his case? No other that Jacques Chirac, the French President. During the EU summit on Friday October 17, Chirac thought it would be clearly inappropriate for the EU to criticize Mahathir. According to the Associated Press, France opposed vehemently a condemnation of...

The Land of Enlightenment is fast becoming the land of darkness for France’s Jewish citizens. And many in the French Jewish community have been aware of this sad situation for some time, a realization that was reinforced by the attack on two synagogues by Muslim rioters in Paris last summer during the Gaza conflict. But the latest shocking, anti-Semitic crime that occurred early in December in the same city has deepened the community’s feeling that the possibility of living peaceful lives with a Jewish identity in France is rapidly disappearing. The latest outrage produced by France’s growing anti-Semitic climate, found...

France angered by Sharon's call Jewish monuments and graves have been attacked Government officials and Jewish leaders in France have criticised Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for calling on all French Jews to move to Israel. Mr Sharon said moving was a "must" because of a rising number of anti-Semitic attacks in France. France's foreign ministry said it had asked Israel for an explanation of the "unacceptable comments". On Monday, an Israeli spokesman tried to play down the comments, saying Mr Sharon had been misunderstood. Avi Pazner told French Radio Europe 1 that Mr Sharon's comments to the American Jewish...

French President Jacques Chirac told Israel at the start of the war in Lebanon that France would support an Israeli assault on Syria, it was reported on Sunday. Army Radio reported that in the message, which was delivered by Chirac to Israel via a secret channel, the French president suggested that Israel invade Damascus and topple the regime of Bashar Assad. In exchange, Chirac assured Israel full French support for the war. According to the message delivered from Paris, Syria was responsible for the flare up in the North and encouraged Hizbullah to attack. "Former prime minister Ariel Sharon had...

Just 10 days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon enraged French leaders by urging France's Jews to leave for Israel, a group of 200 French Jews arrived to start a new life in the Jewish state, with Sharon at the airport to greet them.

French President Jacques Chirac sent a message to his Israeli counterpart Moshe Katsav in which he says he views the crisis over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's call for French Jews to immigrate to Israel because of "wild anti-Semitism" as over, Israel Radio reported Saturday. The message was handed over to Katsav by a French cabinet minister, the radio said. The diplomatic crisis between France and Israel over Sharon's call erupted last week following Sharon's address to American Jewish leaders, in which he urged French Jews to move to Israel as soon as possible. "We see the spread of the wildest...

PARIS, May 11 (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac warned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Saturday of repercussions if Israel continued what Chirac called an "anti-French campaign" maligning France as anti-Semitic. "The president objected strongly to the anti-French campaign currently being waged in Israel in an attempt to present France as an anti-Semitic country," spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said after Chirac telephoned Sharon. "This campaign is unacceptable and cannot continue without repercussions," Chirac told Sharon, according to Colonna. Chirac, re-elected in a landslide victory over extreme-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen last Sunday, phoned both Sharon and Palestinian President...

PARIS - Jewish parents tell their sons not to wear yarmulkes. A rabbi is stabbed while preparing for a Sabbath service. Elderly women are frisked before entering synagogues - just in case. As the stresses of being Jewish in France multiply, some feel it safer to hide their religion. Others have decided the only solution is to pack up and leave. Statistics released this week by the Jewish Agency, the body that arranges immigration to Israel, show that 2,326 French Jews emigrated to Israel in 2002, more than double the number of a year earlier. French arrivals were a mere...

PARIS, April 8 (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac on Monday condemned a wave of attacks on Jewish synagogues and other sites in France, saying the French were not anti-Semitic. His comments, made during a combined interview with four Jewish stations, were followed just hours later by the discovery of an attempted arson attack on a Jewish student union office at Paris's Jussieu University.Three Molotov cocktails were found near the UEJF office, a university official said, adding there had been no fire."There are undisputedly anti-Semitic acts that are unacceptable and totally contrary to the principles of our republic, and which,...

"Everybody in France knows there is anti-Semitism except Jacques Chirac,” said Olivier Guland, editor of France's largest Jewish newspaper, Tribune Juif. Guland was speaking with Arutz Sheva Israel National Radio about his revealing conversation with Chirac, during which the French President denounced reports of anti-Semitic incidents in France as “rumors.” Two days ago, during a presidential reception for newspaper editors, Guland was angrily received by Chirac when he introduced himself as the editor of the Jewish Tribune Juif. “You must stop,” Chirac said. When Guland asked, “Stop what, Mr. President?” Chirac answered, “Stop saying that there is anti-Semitism in France. ...

PARIS - President Jacques Chirac said Monday that the Israeli leader would not be welcome here until he gave a satisfactory explanation for saying Jews should go to Israel to escape anti-Semitism in France. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s remarks Saturday produced a storm of rebuke after he said French Jews were under threat by the nation's much larger Muslim community and should leave. Sharon was considering a trip to Paris, but no date had been set. "A visit by the Israeli prime minister to Paris ... won't be looked at closely until the requested explanation...

France informed Israel Monday that Prime Minister Sharon, whose office has been planning a visit to France, is not welcome in light of his call to French Jews to immigrate to Israel. Israeli diplomatic officials said that Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, French President Jacques Chirac's personal diplomatic advisor, spoke to Israeli diplomat Jacques Revah and informed him that as a result of Sharon's call to French Jewry to leave France, "there is no reason to see Sharon." Revah is filling in for vacationing ambassador Nissim Zvili. Israeli diplomatic officials said although no date had yet been set for a visit, such a...

(CBS/AP) Just 10 days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon enraged French leaders by urging France's Jews to leave for Israel, a group of 200 French Jews arrived to start a new life in the Jewish state, with Sharon at the airport to greet them. As one émigré told CBS News Correspondent Mark Philips: You wear something to say you are Jewish and you have difficulty. We are afraid. It's simply that we are afraid." At a welcoming ceremony, Sharon appeared to try to correct the damage from his earlier statements, saying anti-Semitism threatens the Western world, without singling out...

PARIS, July 11 (AFP) - French officials, civil rights groups and Jewish associations at the weekend expressed outrage at a new anti-Semitic attack committed just as President Jacques Chirac and his government vowed to crack down on racist acts. Chirac himself on Saturday called the attack, on a 23-year-old mother and her 13-month-old baby, "shameful" and said in a statement that the perpetrators must be found and punished with the full severity of the law. The assault occurred early Friday, when six unidentified men said to be of North African Arab and African origin grabbed the victim as she travelled...

VERSAILLES, France - A young woman and her baby were attacked in a suburban train near Paris on Saturday by unidentified men who drew swastikas on her stomach with a pen in what police said was an anti-Semitic assault. The six attackers who were armed with knives clipped the 23-year-old woman's hair, and cut her t-shirt and pants before drawing three swastikas on her body. The men of North African origin also overturned the pram with her baby of 13 months. In the attack they robbed her backpack which contained her identity papers, a bank card and 200 euros ($250)....

PARIS - A gang of young men attacked a woman riding a suburban train with her infant, cutting her hair and drawing swastikas on her stomach. Other passengers watched but did nothing, police reported. French politicians issued denunciations Sunday as news of the Friday morning attack spread through the nation. Police said the gang of six set upon the 23-year-old woman on a suburban train north of Paris and grabbed her backpack where they found identity papers that showed an address in the capital's well-to-do 16th district. "There are only Jews in the 16th," one of the group of attackers...

By Andrew Diamond PARIS, Jan. 21 (JTA) -- Jews in the Paris region have stepped up their drive against a wave of anti-Semitic aggression that many feel has reached epidemic proportions. On Sunday in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, more than 600 people attended a rally against anti-Semitic violence. Among them were representatives of Christian and Muslim communal organizations and high-ranking officials from all the major political parties in France. It was the third such demonstration in the Paris suburbs in the last three weeks. In staging these demonstrations, French Jewish organizations have adopted a more assertive approach as they ...