Two 13-year-olds have been charged with the gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a Paris suburb. A third suspect, 12, is charged with anti-Semitic hate speech, violence, and death threats, but not rape, and has been released.
The girl was reportedly approached by the three attackers in a park near her home. They dragged her into a shed and “forced her to have anal and vaginal penetration, fellatio, while uttering death threats and anti-Semitic remarks,” according to police sources.
The gang rape is sending shockwaves through France as the nation prepares for legislative elections.
“The anti-Semitic attack and the rape of a 12-year-old child in Hauts-de-Seine revolt us,” said populist leader Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally party won the European Parliament elections in France this month.
“The explosion of anti-Semitic acts, up 300 percent compared to the first three months of 2023, must alert all French people: the stigmatization of Jews for months by the far left through the instrumentalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a real threat to civil peace,” she continued.
“Everyone should be fully aware of this on June 30 and July 7,” she added in reference to the dates of the snap election, called by President Emmanuel Macron in response to her European election win.
The French press has not disclosed the names, national origin, ethnicity, or religion of the suspects.