Macron calls for fight against anti-Semitism in schools after rape of Jewish girl

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday (June 19) called on schools to hold a “discussion hour” this week on racism and anti-Semitism, after the rape of a Jewish girl in a Paris suburb contributed to the charged social climate in France ahead of the elections.

Three teenagers were arrested this week after a 12-year-old girl from Courbevoie, west of Paris, filed a complaint. The girl told police she had been the victim of a gang rape and had been insulted with anti-Semitic slurs, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office said.

The investigation focuses on charges of rape, death threats and bodily harm, with an alleged religious background cited as an aggravating circumstance.

Since the attack by armed Hamas fighters on southern Israel on October 7 and the subsequent war launched by Israel against the Islamist group, anti-Semitic incidents have increased sharply in France.

Macron reacted quickly as France was in the middle of a three-week election campaign after he unexpectedly called early parliamentary elections.

The president on Wednesday called on Education Minister Nicole Belloubet to “organize a discussion in all schools on the fight against anti-Semitism and racism in order to prevent hate speech from entering schools with serious consequences,” Macron’s office said.

Opponents accused the Rassemblement National and the right-wing radical party La France Insomniac within the Front Popular alliance of tolerating anti-Semitic views in their ranks. Both parties deny these allegations.

Former presidential candidate of the far-left LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is staunchly pro-Palestinian and regularly accused of anti-Semitism by opponents such as Macron. He tweeted that he was “horrified” by the attack.

Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen – whose party was co-founded by a former member of the Nazi paramilitary Waffen SS – said the gang rape “outraged us” and accused the “extreme left” of exploiting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for political purposes.

The leader of the Rassemblement National, Jordan Bardella, said on Wednesday that France must fight against an “anti-Semitic atmosphere” that has prevailed in the country since the beginning of the Gaza war.

Elections are the focus

Less than two weeks before the first round of new elections, which Macron called in response to his party’s defeat by the extreme right in the European elections, the president is struggling to catch up.

Opinion polls show his coalition government will come only third in the parliamentary elections on June 30 – followed by a run-off on July 7 – behind the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) and a new left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP), which unites leftists from the Socialists to the Communists.

This could put RN leader Jordan Bardella in a position to become prime minister in a difficult “cohabitation” with Macron. However, the 28-year-old stresses that he will only accept this if his party and its allies win an absolute majority of seats.

Macron also sharply criticized the NFP on Tuesday, claiming that the situation was “four times worse on the extreme left” than on the extreme right.

“There is no more secularism, they are going to roll back the immigration law and there are things that are completely absurd, like changing the gender in the city hall,” he said.

The left-wing coalition’s program includes a proposal to allow for a change in civil status.

Anti-discrimination groups rejected the comments and SOS Homophobia accused the president of “transphobia”.

“How is it possible that this man, elected and re-elected to confront the extreme right, is in reality repeating the discourse of the extreme right?” Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure told RTL.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)