French teens, 12-year-old arrested for gang rape, antisemitic attack of Jewish girl, 12: ‘Horror has no limits’
Three French boys were arrested in the gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Paris in a sickening antisemitic attack, police said — prompting President Emmanuel Macron and other officials to demand schools crack down on racism and hate-fueled violence.
The victim, from Courbevoie, told police the boys raped her, made death threats and hurled antisemitic slurs at her during the assault on Saturday.
The girl was specifically targeted over her religion, the Nanterre public prosecution office said.
Chief Rabbi of France Haim Korsia said he was “horrified” over the attack and called on his nation to crack down on such despicable acts of antisemitism.
“Justice must firmly punish the perpetrators of this despicable act. No one can be excused from this unprecedented antisemitic surge,” Korsia wrote on X.
One of the suspects was allegedly the victim’s ex-boyfriend who planned revenge against her after she supposedly hid from him the fact that she was Jewish, according to the local Le Parisien newspaper.
Lawyer and Jewish leader Elie Korchia told French broadcaster BFM that the war in Gaza was referenced during the attack.
After the attack, the girl was warned not to go to the police and the main assailant demanded she pay them 200 euros, or $215, “otherwise something bad would happen to her and her family because he knows where she is,” Le Parisien reports.
The attackers — ages 12, 13 and 14 — were all arrested.
Two of the boys were charged with aggravated gang rape on a minor younger than 15, violence and public insult motivated by religion, death threats, attempted extortion and unlawfully recording or broadcasting sexual images.
The two teens accused of participating in the rape are being held in custody and the third boy was placed in a special education program for assisting in the vile act.
The horrific crime triggered protests outside Paris City Hall, with citizens frustrated over the rise of antisemitism in France since Oct. 7 and the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Macron was quick to condemn the attack and called on Education Minister Nicole Belloubet “to organize a discussion in all schools on the fight against antisemitism and racism, to prevent hate speech with serious consequences from infiltrating schools.”
Belloubet echoed the outrage and said the nation would be united in its “response against barbarism.”
“Horror has no limits,” Belloubet said in a statement about the crime. “Rape, anti-Semitism: everything is abominable in this crime committed in Courbevoie against a 12-year-old girl.”
With Post wires
