Israel-Hamas war: 'We won't let anything pass' in schools, warns Gabriel Attal

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Frederic Dides / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 13:09 p.m., October 11, 2023, modified at 13:14 p.m., October 11, 2023

"We will not let anything pass," Education Minister Gabriel Attal warned Wednesday during a visit to a Jewish school in the Paris suburbs, referring to anti-Semitic attacks, acts or words in schools. "The priority today for the Ministry of Education is to ensure security and serenity in our schools," said Gabriel Attal, alongside Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, in front of the Ozar Atorah private Jewish school in Sarcelles (Val-d'Oise).

"We will be totally intractable"

He mentioned "alerts that have been reported to us in recent hours and days, with students of the Jewish faith who may have been the subject of aggression in their school" and "calls that have been relayed by collectives to come and leaflet or demonstrate in front of schools". "From this point of view, we will be totally intractable, we will not let anything pass," he said.

The Minister of Education referred to "several totally unbearable and unacceptable situations", which have "come to light since Monday: a swastika drawn on a blackboard in a classroom targeting a student, an attack (...) in the Hauts-de-Seine of a high school student by classmates". About this attack, Mr. Attal explained that he asked Tuesday that the prosecutor of the Republic "be seized of an attack of which was victim a high school student in Ile-de-France", whose t-shirt was torn off by a comrade.

Gabriel Attal also assured that he would "mobilize in an extremely reactive manner" the 546 staff of the mobile security teams of the rectorates "if events or demonstrations were to take place".

20 arrests since Saturday

The interior minister said that "more than 20 arrests" had taken place since Saturday, linked to anti-Semitic acts, which he estimated at about <>, including "some very serious."

Some "500 places - schools, synagogues, places where French people of the Jewish faith are used to go, to live within our Republic - are now protected by 10,000 police and gendarmes," Darmanin said. "I think it's very important that all French people of the Jewish faith know that they are protected, regardless of the corner of the national territory," he added.

>> READ ALSO - Israel/Hamas war: about 50 anti-Semitic acts in France since Saturday

On Tuesday, the interior minister cited as examples of anti-Semitic acts "people who go in front of synagogues, many of them, who shout threats," "drones that enter schoolyards with a camera" and "slogans, tags, threatening letters."

"Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, is a crime, not an opinion"

For their part, the university presidents of France Universités said in a statement that they "will not allow initiatives to flourish in their establishment aimed, under the guise of debating the situation in the Middle East, to circulate remarks laden with anti-Semitism".

They were reacting to "indecent" remarks made earlier this week by a lecturer at Paris-Panthéon-Assas, or messages of "support for the struggle of the Palestinian people" from a Solidaires trade union section of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).

"Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, is a crime, not an opinion, justifying that it should be reported without delay to the competent prosecutor. There can not be, and there will be, no tolerance in this matter in universities," said France Universités.