France Rallies For Halimi
Thousands of people marched through Paris on Sunday in tribute to Ilan Halimi, whose horrific anti-semitic murder at the hands of a violent kidnap gang shocked France.
The rally, organised by Jewish and anti-hate groups, was attended by more than 30,000 people, including Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, as well as figures from across the political spectrum.
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Halimi’s family did not attend the event but issued a message of thanks to pariticpants.
Smaller gatherings took place in the cities in Lyon and Marseille, and Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard took part in a rally in Bordeaux.
Halimi, a 23-year-old mobile phone salesman, was found close to death at a train station on the outskirts of the French capital two weeks ago after going missing on 21 January.
He was naked, gagged and handcuffed, and his body showed signs of the torture he endured during a three-week kidnap ordeal that began when he went on a date with a stranger. He died in an ambulance as he was being rushed to hospital.
Police have been reluctant to label the killing as anti-semitic, but Interior Minister Sarkozy told reporters: “They kidnapped and murdered him because he was Jewish - in their words, the Jews have money.”
Police have since confirmed that four of six men the gang had tried to abduct previously are Jewish.
Other senior members of the government were also keen to display their solidarity with France’s 500,000-strong Jewish community.
Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin were among those to pay tribute to the murdered salesman at a memorial ceremony on Thursday of last week.
The President and his Prime Minister joined hundreds of members of the city’s Jewish community at the Grande Synagogue de la Victoire as the government responded to accusations from Halimi’s family that police ignored the racial motivation behind the attack in order not to upset the Muslim community.
France’s Grand Rabbi, Joseph Sitruk, told the crowd at the Grande Synagogue: “From now on, in France, there will be the period before Ilan and that after Ilan.
“Today, I ask all French citizens to all stand up as one man and shout loud and clear, ‘Enough is enough.’”
The police have so far arrested 17 alleged members of the multi-racial gang behind the kidnapping after information was provided by a woman who said she had acted as bait to lure another man to the gang’s lair.
The suspected leader of the gang, Youssouf Fofana, 25, was arrested in the Ivory Coast last week and was due to be extradited to France.
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