This is a world war, says Valls
FRENCH PRIME Minister Manuel Valls told a Jewish community gathering on Monday that the recent terrorism in Israel, along with the attacks by Daesh in France, showed “we are in a world war”.
Speaking at an event in Paris organised by Crif, the French Jewish umbrella group, Mr Valls said: “There are more and more terrorist attacks all over the world. In France, Burkina Faso, in Jakarta, in Israel, it keeps happening and it shows we need to learn to live with it.”
He added that the increased terrorist threat in France could be explained by “upheaval in the Arab world” and “the reality in certain neighbourhoods in France, where young people are being radicalised.”
Mr Valls sought to reassure his audience that the government was doing all it could to protect France’s Jews: “We are doing 100 per cent, employing all measures, and we will continue to do so, but the risk is not negligible.”
The prime minister also hit out at former foreign minister Roland Dumas, who last year said Mr Valls was “under Jewish influence” because of his Jewish wife,AnneGravoin.“Itisantisemitismof the worst kind,” Mr Valls said of Dumas. “Certain compulsive antisemites act on the fact that my wife is Jewish.”
Meanwhile, Marseille football fans announced last week they would cover their heads to show solidarity with a Jewish teacher who was attacked in the city last week.
A message posted on the Olympique de Marseille (OM) fans’ website on Thursday urged supporters to cover their heads at next week’s match in the Marseille Velodrome stadium.
Earlier in the week, French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia had called on OM fans to cover their heads after the teacher — who had been wearing a kippah — was attacked by a teen wielding a machete.
After the attack leader of the Marseille Consistoire Tzvi Amar suggested Jews should not wear kippot for safety. This sparked the Chief Rabbi’s appeal and a social media campaign for everyone to wear kippot on Friday morning #TousAvecUneKippa.
On Monday, French police arrested two suspects, aged 21 and 23, over the murder of French Jewish politician Alain Ghozland, 73, who was found dead last week at an apartment in Creteil. Police said it was too early to know whether antisemitism was a motive.