“Mr. Cyril Hanouna, little kouffar, be very careful about what you do… and the whole Republic be very careful, you bunch of kouffars.” The threat made by this 29-year-old man, on October 13 at 12:57 p.m. and 12:58 p.m., could sum up the period. In a mixture of buffoonery and violence, he filmed himself, a mask bearing the image of Osama bin Laden on his head, before posting his video on the social network TikTok, under the nickname “@ben.ladengang” . His comments mix the French situation, jihadist propaganda and the Israel-Hamas conflict. “Well done, I wanted to congratulate on the knife attack in Arras, Allah Akbar,” he declared, accompanying his remarks with a written inlay “congratulations my brother for Arras” and three Palestinian flag emoticons. “Wallah, all the harm you have done to Palestine, you will pay, you will pay, wallah I swear you will pay,” he also said. Arrested on October 15, he mentioned videos for “joking”. Already convicted three times for theft and domestic violence, he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for advocating terrorism and threatening a crime, accompanied by a committal warrant.
Taking place eight days after the Hamas attack, this trial was one of the first in a long series. “Around thirty” convictions linked to an anti-Semitic act have already been handed down, notes the Ministry of Justice. More than 300 investigations remain ongoing, with the total number of anti-Semitic acts rising to more than 1,500 since October 7, according to the Interior Ministry. The facts tell of this tangle of belching on social networks and very real threats.
Several attacks have already been noted. On November 2, a Jewish man left a grocery store in Avignon (Vaucluse). He is attacked by two women. His yarmulke placed under a cap falls. Sheryane H., 18 years old, then spits on the piece of fabric, tramples it, insults its wearer. She was sentenced to five months in prison, the anti-Semitic motivation of her act was found. “My gesture is not against the Jews but against Israeli policy,” she explained to the audience. “She spends her day watching atrocious videos of what is happening in Palestine on social networks,” argued her lawyer. On November 8, a rabbi was kicked in the Paris metro, between La Chapelle and Gare du Nord. The alleged perpetrator, aged 14, declared himself Syrian.
Police continue to investigate the attack suffered by Eva, stabbed in Lyon on November 4. A man came to ring his doorbell, on which a mezuzah hangs. He stabbed her twice, the victim said. A swastika was drawn on his door. The prosecution is currently considering the characterization of attempted anti-Semitic homicide. On October 20 in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, around 5 a.m., an octogenarian couple called the firefighters for a fire in their home. They were the only residents of the building to have placed a mezuzah in front of their door. The perpetrator was declared schizophrenic by those around him. Gasoline was also spilled in front of other entrances. The investigation continues. The motivation seems obvious in the case of Priscilla R., a Franco-Gabonese whose The Parisian reports the trial, this November 6. At the checkout of a Parisian supermarket, she hit another customer, spat on her and called her a “dirty Jew” – the victim is indeed of the Jewish faith. The case was referred for psychiatric evaluation.
On October 31, Yassin El Himer, imam in Beaucaire (Gard), was arrested and placed in detention following a report from the prefect. He was returning from Jordan. “You will fight the Jews and have the upper hand over them so that the stone will say: O Muslim! Here is a Jew hiding behind me… come and kill him,” he wrote on Facebook. He was sentenced to eight months in prison. The prosecution appealed. Influencer Warda A. was tried on November 10 for making fun of the discovery of an Israeli baby in an oven on Instagram. “I think it’s a pretty good menu!”, she declared, as well as “the hunt for Sunnis, sorry Zionists, is open. And we can’t say that it’s not deserved. I’m not here to spread hatred or find it legitimate or anything but it’s a bit legitimate all the same, we can’t deny it.” The judgment was postponed until November 22. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, 194 messages posted on the Internet are currently the subject of investigations by the national center for the fight against online hatred.
The mysterious affair of the Star of David tags in the Paris region seems to be starting to become clearer. In a press release, the Quai d’Orsay condemns “the involvement of the Russian network Recent Reliable News” in the dissemination of these images on social networks. The influence operation, described as a “new Russian digital interference operation” would consist of sowing trouble in France by widening the already existing fractures in the country.