Jewish leaders warn of rising hate as France remembers supermarket victims

Around 200 people gathered outside the Hypercacher store at Porte de Vincennes, eastern Paris, to commemorate the four Jewish victims of gunman Amedy Coulibaly during the terrorist attacks across Paris in January 2015.


French Jewish leaders joined politicians, rights campaigners and some 200 people in eastern Paris on Thursday to mark 10 years since four people were killed in a terrorist attack at a kosher supermarket.

The ceremony took place outside the Hypercacher store at Porte de Vincennes where Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, Yoav Hattab and François-Michel Saada died on 9 January 2015.

The attacker, Amedy Coulibaly, was killed when police stormed the building to free hostages. Coulibaly was linked to the Kouachi brothers who killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo magazine two days earlier.

Relatives and politicians lit 10 candles on a specially constructed altar to remember the victims, including teachers Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard, killed by extremists in 2020 and 2023.

ADVERTISEMENT

Additional candles honoured victims of anti-Semitism in France, global terrorism and the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.

Michel Gugenheim, the chief rabbi of Paris, read The Kaddish – the Jewish prayer for the dead. Rabbi Haïm Korsia and Christophe Le Sourt, of the conference of French bishops, followed with a prayer for the republic.

The 30-minute service was organised by the Crif, an umbrella group representing French Jewish institutions, and will be followed on Thursday night by a debate staged in tandem with Charlie Hebdo on freedom of expression, Islamism and anti-Semitism.

Thursday's commemoration ceremony was marred after Stars of David and the word "Jew" were found tagged on buildings near the store and at a local synagogue.


Read more on RFI English

Read also:
Tributes honour victims a decade after Charlie Hebdo attack shook France
'I saved human beings', says Muslim man who hid Jews in Paris siege
French newspapers torn between tributes and defiance on Charlie Hebdo anniversary