The French government declared war on racism on 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,” Minister of Justice Dominique Perben told radio station RMC Info.
On Sunday, unidentified vandals broke into a Jewish centre in a central 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 [were] 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 website 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”.
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 is ”lax” on anti-Semitic offenders.
He said state prosecutors have standing orders to appeal systematically sentences seen as too light in such cases, special appeals judges have been appointed and penalties for racist crimes have 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 face 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 soared, 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 in.
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. — Sapa-AFP