Tens of thousands of people protesting racism and anti-Semitism held marches in France Sunday in memory of a Jewish kidnap victim tortured and killed by a violent extortion gang.
Jewish and anti-racism groups organising the main rally in Paris said up to 200,000 people walked through the east of the capital, from Place de la Repblique to Nation, past the mobile telephone shop on Boulevard Voltaire where the 23-year-old murdered man, Ilan Halimi, worked.
Police put their number at 33,000.
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The forefront of the Paris march against racism and anti-Semitism.
Photo: Alain Azria |
Some lit candles or released white balloons as they passed the shop, while others sang the French national anthem or chanted Jewish prayers.
The Paris demonstration included figures from across the political
spectrum, including interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, Socialist party head Francois Hollande and former Prime minister Lionel Jospin, as well as the leaders of rights groups, unions, student bodies, and Jewish and Muslim associations.
Religious personalities, including Dalil Boubakeur, head of the Paris Mosque and chairman of the Council of Muslims in France, and Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, were also present in the forefront of the march.
Notably absent, however, were members of the victim’s family. Ilan Halimi's mother Ruth and two sisters, Anne-Laure and Yael, announced they wouldn't attend the demonstration but they stressed that they were moved by the marchers' solidarity.
They denied that their decision to stay away from the march was linked to the participation of extreme-right officials. Some of Ilan's friends, who have been working him in the mobile phone shop, also stayed away because, they told French television, of “the presence of extreme-right officials.”
One far-right politician who attempted to participate, Philippe de
Villiers, leader of the Movement for France party, was forcibly expelled by private security guards employed by the organisers, while members of the xeonophobic National Front party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen did not attend, police said, despite vows to do so.
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A young woman holds the banner 'Touche pas a mon pote' (Don't touch my buddy) of the anti-racist association Sos Racisme.
AFP Copyright 2006 |
Roger Cukierman, head of the umbrella group of Jewish secular associations in France (CRIF), which organised the marches with two left-wing anti-racism groups, said: "It’s important for French society to realise that little anti-Semite and racist prejudices can have terrible consequences."
Silent marches of between 1,000 and 2,000 people also took place in the cities of Lyon, Nice, Bordeaux, Marseille and Strasbourg with demonstrators carrying pictures of Halimi and banners reading "Rest in Peace, Ilan".
In London, a crowd of about 50 sympathisers gathered in front of the French embassy to remember the victim, in what ambassador Gerard Erreta said was "a show of solidarity and vigilance," in the face of anti-semitism.
In Jerusalem several hundred Israelis of French origin demonstrated in
solidarity with French Jews following the murder.
"The martyrdom of Ilan reminds us that anti-semitism still kills 60 years after Auschwitz," Rabbi Jacques Gruenwald told the gathering.
Sunday's demonstration in Paris was the largest since 1990 when around 200,000 people took on the streets of the capital four days after Jewish tombstones were desecrated in the cemetery of the southern city of Carpentras.
For the first time since WWII, then France’s President, Francois Mitterrand, and the country’s Prime Minister, Michel Rocard lead the march.
Government spokesman
The French government was wary about drawing too heavy a link between the criminal gang responsible for Halimi’s murder and anti-Jewish sentiment, however.
Past incidents in which apparently anti-Semitic crimes turned out to be staged or committed for other motives seemed to lie behind its cautious stance.
A government spokesman, Jean-Francois Cope, told French radio that while there were "strong suspicions" of anti-Semitic motives in "this horrible affair", investigators were still getting to the bottom of the case.
"Absolutely everything must be done to know all the details" before
conclusions about racism or anti-Semitism were drawn, he said.
Halimi’s abduction and murder has sent shockwaves through the country, and raised tensions between France’s large Jewish and Muslim communities.
Gang leader to be extradited within a week
Halimi, 23, was kidnapped in January by the gang, which, among other tacticts, apparently used young women as bait to lure men into a trap. According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot one of these women was a 16-year-old Iranian.
He was held for three weeks while his abductors sent ransom demands to his family.
On February 13, Halimi was discovered, naked, bound and gagged, with horrific burns and stab injuries, alongside a railway track near Paris. He died while being taken to hospital.
Tipped off by one of the "sex-bait" women, police quickly swooped on a number of suspects, which has grown to 17 with recent arrests.
The alleged ringleader, identified by prosecutors as Youssef Fofana, 25, was arrested in the Ivory Coast capital Abidjan and France has requested his extradition.
Fofana, a convicted petty criminal of Ivorian origin and with French
citizenship, is suspected of being behind two other extortion rackets that involved threatening doctors, businessmen and minor celebrities.
Questioned by police, he allegedly said the gang targeted Halimi because he was presumed as a Jew to be wealthy, but denied being the killer or that anti-Semitism was the motive.
Police said they had confirmation that four of six other potential kidnap victims tracked by the gang were also Jewish.
"He has shown no remorse, no regret," an investigator said of Fofana, who was expected to be extradited to France within a week.
On Saturday, two of the young women and a male suspect were placed under formal criminal investigation as a precursor to being charged on kidnapping and illegal detention counts.
Although the gang allegedly includes whites, blacks and Arabs, media
attention has focused on its Muslim members, stoking animosity between members of France’s 600,000-strong Jewish community and the five-million-strong Muslim population.
