Anti-Semitic slaying of woman prompts outcry in France

French leaders and activists called for people to take to the streets to protest after prosecutors filed preliminary charges of murder with antiSemitic motives Tuesday in the death of an elderly Jewish woman.

Mireille Knoll, 85, was killed Friday in her apartment, which was then set on fire, according to a French judicial official. Francis Kalifat, president of the Jewish group CRIF, said Knoll was stabbed 11 times.

Two men have been jailed in the case, according to the judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. They face preliminary charges of robbery, damaging property, and murder with anti-Semitic motives, he said.

Knoll reportedly escaped a notorious World War II roundup of Paris Jews, in which police herded some 13,000 people _ including more than 4,000 children _ into a stadium and shipped them to the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi German-occupied Poland. Fewer than 100 survived.

Then 9, Knoll fled with her mother to Portugal, returning to France only after the end of the war.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called on “all Parisians’’ to join a silent march Wednesday in memory of Knoll. Politicians across the political spectrum promised to attend.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that Knoll’s death was a “horrific crime,’’ and reaffirmed his “absolute determination to fight against anti-Semitism.’’