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A French woman told police that a group of six men attacked her on a suburban train north of Paris. Her story was a fabrication. (AFP)
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| By Ellis Shuman July 14, 2004 |
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A young French woman who provoked a national outrage after she reported being accosted on a commuter train by men who mistakenly identified her as a Jew, fabricated the entire story, police said yesterday. "But this event should not be used to distract attention from the very real problem of anti-Semitism in France, a problem this French government is well aware of and committed to fighting," Jewish officials said.
The 23-year-old woman, identified by the press as Marie Leonie, told police on Friday that a group of six men attacked her on a suburban train north of Paris. She said the attackers slashed her clothing with knives, lightly wounding her in the process, and drew swastikas on her stomach with a marker. The assailants also reportedly overturned the stroller of her 13-month-old child before they got off the train.
Police began to doubt the account when video surveillance cameras did not record the presence of any men fitting Leonie's description, and when no passengers on the train came forth to collaborate her account. A friend of Leonie said that the woman had a history of filing claims of being assaulted.
"The first declarations of the young woman reveal that her accusations were lies and that she had been making it all up," the public prosecutor's office said in a statement. The woman admitted to "having made knife cut marks on herself, cut off a lock of her own hair and drawn swastikas on her body," it said.
French government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said yesterday whether the woman's account proved true or not had little bearing on France's need to act against growing intolerance toward minorities and the violence that stems from it.
"The explosion of the number of racist and anti-Semitic acts committed in our country in the last few years is a reality that we must combat,'' Cope told RTL radio.
According to information released by the French Interior Ministry on Friday, a total of 135 anti-Jewish acts were recorded in France through June 30, as well as 375 threats. The figure was nearly as high as the numbers from all of last year, when a total of 593 anti-Jewish acts or threats were registered, media sources reported.
Last week, President Jacques Chirac visited Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a small French village that rescued 5,000 Jews during the Nazi occupation and gave a speech urging the nation to reject anti-Semitism and all forms of prejudice.
"I ask (the French) to remind their children of the mortal danger of fanaticism, of exclusion, of cowardliness and resignation to extremism," Chirac said.
Relating to the fabricated account of the French woman, American Jewish Committee executive director David A. Harris said, "Her actions were outrageous and inexcusable."
"But this event should not be used to distract attention from the very real problem of anti-Semitism in France, a problem this French government is well aware of and committed to fighting," Harris added.
"It's quite unfortunate that we didn't check before this information was circulated," said Roger Cukierman, head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, the country's leading Jewish organization. "This woman is sick. She was influenced by the climate of violence and of intolerance that reigns."
Cukierman said he thought that the fabricated report would not necessarily lead to the downplaying of potential future anti-Semitic incidents.
"There are so many anti-Semitic aggressions, you can't deny them all," he said.
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