An investigation is underway to track down a group of men who attacked a 53-year-old Jewish man on Saturday as he was leaving the Saint-Ouen synagogue, north of Paris.
The man, who owns a supermarket and has lived in the area for 15 years, said he was leaving the synagogue with a Rabbi at around 1:20 pm on Saturday when he was pursued by a man aged around 25.
As he walked, the man following him repeatedly called him “dirty Jew”. When he failed to react the attacker spat at him and when he told the man to stop, things turned ugly.
“He head-butted me, I was bleeding everywhere,” the victim was quoted as saying by Le Parisien.
He then spoke of how he tried to defend himself before the attacker was joined by two other men.
“They beat me up. They kicked me in the leg, back and that’s when the first attacker took out a knife. I heard the others saying ‘Go on, stab him, Jew’,” he recalled.
He said he then jumped on his attacker to get him to drop the knife and hit him as people shouted ‘call the police!’
The attackers eventually fled after kicking him in the stomach.
The victim reported the incident on Sunday and police are now working to identify the attackers.
The National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA), which monitors anti-Semitic incidents in France, said in a statement : “Even if the sites for the Jewish community are under surveillance, Jews are still vulnerable targets in the streets and in shops.’’
Anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise in the country. Last year, 851 anti-Semitic acts were reported, compared with 423 the previous year, with acts of physical violence jumping to 241 from 105.
According to CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organisations, "These anti-Semitic acts represent 51 percent of racist acts committed in France while Jews make up only one percent of the French population."
On Sunday French President Francois Hollande warned that the continued existence of racism and anti-Semitism meant "the worst could yet return", as he led commemorations at the Struthof in the Alsace region, site of the only Nazi concentration camp on French soil.