Yes, I was at the rally against anti-Semitism and sexual and gender-based violence in Paris, Place de la Bastille. It was organized in a few hours by around fifteen anti-racist and feminist civil society organizations, in reaction to a terrible crime: the rape in Courbevoie of a very young girl, a 12-year-old child, by other children, 3 boys aged 12 to 14, on the grounds that she is Jewish. An anti-Semitic rape therefore, an aggravated crime.
Was it a political rally?
In the good sense of the word. Because in addition to the immense emotion that brought us together, an essential question hovered there: what is this infamous mechanism which led three children to the act of punishing a Jewish child by rape, for who she is? When children rape children, it is society that must be questioned. This anti-Semitic rape is the symptom of two hatreds which combine.
Hate of women: these 12 or 13 year old children have already understood: to punish a woman, rape is a weapon of destruction, of humiliation. In January 2023, the HCEfh showed that young men were more inclined to condone rape culture than their elders. These children may have discovered it while surfing porn, this school of hatred of women.
Hatred of Jews, particularly: because anti-Semitism is not residual in France, it is very present and has exploded since the attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023. In the first quarter of 2024, there were 300% of anti-Semitic acts in more. In the speeches at this gathering, the words were harsh to castigate certain LFI candidates, accused of stirring up hatred, and demanding their withdrawal.
The opportunity also to talk about the legislative elections…
The fight against anti-Semitism has often been, like women’s rights, a “peripheral” issue. However, it is a crucial issue in these elections.
In ambush, it is a xenophobic party, the National Rally, which is at the top of the polls, collecting votes from all directions. Yet the fight against anti-Semitism should not be able to be co-opted by the very people whose electoral fuel has been racism for decades. Because anti-Semitism is racism. Just like misogyny or other LGBTphobia, all are manifestations of a similar mechanism of discrimination, domination and violence that our children witness and reproduce.
In the assembly at Place de la Bastille, many women. One of them took my hands and said to me, with moist eyes: I too was raped at 8 years old. Suddenly, it was a child looking at me. Like her, many of those gathered simply needed to hear the solidarity of other French people.
It is this solidarity that all women and all feminist associations have been talking about since the dissolution of the Assembly. Faced with what seems to them to be a terrible threat, the arrival of the far right in power, they have put their differences aside and will demonstrate throughout France on Sunday to sound the feminist alert with one voice.
