The O’Laffa restaurant located in the Flachet district of Villeurbanne was the target of vandalism punctuated by “Free Gaza” messages on the night of Monday to Tuesday in the suburbs of Lyon.
Le Figaro Lyon
She learned the news on social media while getting her children ready for school. The manager of the kosher restaurant O’Laffa in Villeurbanne discovered the facade of her establishment stained with red paint and tagged with a message “Free Gaza” this Tuesday morning. When she went to the site, near the Flachet stop of the Lyon metro, she discovered that the windows and the sign had also been damaged.
“These are not just tags but significant damage that reflects a very deep hatreddenounces Cindy Fèvre, 34, to the Figaro as she prepares to file a complaint. When we discover this, we ask ourselves a million questions: should we continue or leave? These red marks represent blood stains, it is very serious, they are death threats..
DR
The shock of the discovery and the anger at the sums to be spent to restore her business are followed by incomprehension among the thirty-something who employs a salaried employee. “of Muslim faith”. “In my restaurant the door is open to everyone”says the one who set up her establishment in the neighborhood a little over a year ago. If she has known “some names of birds since October 7th”nothing suggested such violence.
One of the largest Jewish communities in France
The manager received the support of the municipality, the mayor of Villeurbanne, Cédric Van Styvendael, having personally visited the site. “There is not and cannot be a pretext for anti-Semitism (…). Anti-Semitism is not an opinion but a crime”he reacted in a press release condemning “without reservation” “these intolerable acts of violence”.
“We must put an end to the massacres and the humanitarian disaster that have been taking place for 11 months in Gazacontinues the PS mayor. The Israeli hostages must be released without delay. The ceasefire is the only way out of the nightmare that the people are living. But we refuse the competition of sufferings.”.
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The municipal team has expressed its support to the Jewish community of Villeurbanne, the second largest in France. With this constant fear of the authorities “to import locally” the conflict playing out in the Middle East. A pizzeria in the town had already been the target of anti-Semitic graffiti last fall, while the Aliyah fair had been disrupted by pro-Palestinian activists in the spring.
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