Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 6, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
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French rabbi Elie Lemmel was attacked twice in a week, highlighting a rise in hate crimes across France. Authorities are investigating the incidents.
PARIS (Reuters) - A French rabbi was attacked on Friday for the second time in a week, he told Reuters, reflecting a broad rise in hate crimes across France that has included high-profile anti-Semitic assaults.
Elie Lemmel said he was sitting at a cafe in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine on Friday when he was hit in the head by a chair.
"I found myself on the ground, I immediately felt blood flowing," he said.
He was stunned and unsure what exactly had happened, he said, initially thinking something must have fallen from a window or roof, before it occurred to him he had been attacked.
"Unfortunately, given my beard and my kippah, I suspected that was probably why, and it's such a shame," he said.
Friday's incident follows another in the town of Deauville in Normandy last week, when Lemmel said he was punched in the stomach by an unknown assailant.
Lemmel said he was used to "not-so-friendly looks, some unpleasant words, people passing by, spitting on the ground," but had never been physically assaulted before the two attacks.
The prosecutor's office in Nanterre said it had opened an investigation into the Neuilly attack for aggravated violence and that a person was being held for questioning. It said it could not provide further details.
"This act sickens us," former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on X regarding Friday's incident involving Lemmel. "Antisemitism, like all forms of hatred, is a deadly poison for our society."
Last week, five Jewish institutions were sprayed with green paint in Paris.
"I condemn in the strongest possible terms the anti-Semitic attack that targeted a rabbi in Neuilly today. Attacking a person because of their faith is a shame. The increase in anti-religious acts requires the mobilization of everyone," Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said in a post on X.
France has seen a rise in hate crimes. Last year, police recorded an 11% rise in racist, xenophobic or antireligious crimes, according to official data published in March. The figures did not include a breakdown by attacks on different religions.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Antony Paone, Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
The French rabbi, Elie Lemmel, was attacked at a cafe when he was hit in the head by a chair, marking the second attack he faced in a week.
The prosecutor's office in Nanterre opened an investigation into the Neuilly attack for aggravated violence and confirmed that a person was being held for questioning.
France has seen an 11% rise in racist, xenophobic, or antireligious crimes last year, according to official data published in March.
Gabriel Attal condemned the attack on Lemmel, stating that antisemitism and all forms of hatred are a deadly poison for society.
Last week, five Jewish institutions in Paris were vandalized with green paint, highlighting the ongoing issue of anti-Semitic acts in the country.
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