“Only the Jews and only your mother, long live Palestine Yeah, Yeah. Only Jews and grandmothers, we are Nazis, we are proud.” Tuesday October 31, around ten passengers on line 3 of the Paris metro sang this anti-Semitic song at the top of their lungs. Confronted with these reprehensible and shocking remarks, the other passengers on the train displayed crestfallen expressions. A young woman films the scene before posting it on TikTok. The reactions are not long in coming. Relayed massively by Internet users, the video goes back to the management of the RATP and the police headquarters.
“We won’t let anything go,” Laurent Nuñez exclaimed on X (ex-Twitter). The Paris police chief specifies that he reported to the courts this Wednesday comments that were “shocking, unacceptable, unworthy (…) All means of investigation are being implemented to quickly find the perpetrators”. Contacted by Le Figaro, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirms having been contacted by the police headquarters for “anti-Semitic and hateful songs, cries and comments uttered on public transport and circulating on social networks”. He announced that he had “immediately opened an investigation to identify and prosecute the authors of comments repressed by law, and likely to have different qualifications depending on their content”.
In these investigations, the prosecution will be able to count on the support of the RATP. The Paris transport authority strongly condemns the comments and remains at the disposal of the courts. As a spokesperson explains to Le Figaro, the investigating judge can, as part of his investigation, request the referral of videos from surveillance cameras. “Scandalized by anti-Semitic chants”, Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France region, assured that the Île-de-France Mobilités network and the RATP kept “all video protection tapes available to investigators”.
In reality, transport companies are somewhat helpless in the face of the increase in anti-Semitic acts. As the RATP states in Le Figaro, “as with all other offenses, a complaint is systematically required” so that it can make videos from its 51,000 cameras spread across the entire network available, “an asset important in order to identify the perpetrators of malicious acts. “RATP’s priority is to ensure the safety of its travelers and its agents,” says the transport authority, and for this it has 1,000 sworn and armed GPSR agents (network protection and security group). . Every day, around a hundred teams patrol the network to prevent malicious acts. Also operating are agents from the Ile-de-France Network Brigade belonging to the Transport Police and private security agents paid by Île-de-France Mobilités. However, no specific system has been put in place to combat racist or anti-Semitic attacks, as is the case to combat drug trafficking and consumption or even pickpocketing.
However, it is difficult to blame transport companies. As Tina Theallet, legal manager of Licra, explains to Le Figaro, “to hold the company liable, it would have had to have failed in its security obligations. However, the attacks or crimes are not directly the fault of the company.” For the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, “there is no doubt that the anti-Semitic “chants” in the video are criminally punishable.” And the penalties can be heavy. “Anti-Semitic remarks, whether made in the street or in the metro, are considered public and are offenses punishable by 1 year of imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros,” like any public insult of a nature racial, public racial defamation, public incitement to racial hatred and Holocaust denial. “Apologizing for crimes against humanity is punishable by 5 years of imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros,” explains Tina Theallet.
This is why, “as soon as we became aware of this video, we immediately reported the facts to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and informed Madam Prosecutor of the Republic of Paris that we will become a civil party in this case if proceedings were initiated against the authors of these abject remarks,” adds the Licra representative. Unthinkable in fact to remain passive while the association has noted an increase in reports of anti-Semitic acts since October 7: “In recent weeks we have received 3 times more calls than in 2022 for reports of anti-Semitic acts” and “5 times more reports of hateful content on social networks than in 2022”. For Licra, there is no doubt, “these figures are alarming and linked to the context linked to the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel”.
If a person witnesses or is the victim of an anti-Semitic act in transport, Licra advises keeping evidence – namely taking video or audio recordings or witness testimony which can be of great help in the context of a filing a criminal complaint. Be careful, however, not to broadcast the recordings on social networks, especially if the people are identifiable. She also recommends – in addition to notifying an RATP agent – to turn to witnesses to find support, help, but also to collect their contact details with a view to testifying. And finally to file a complaint with the police quickly, since RATP and SNCF surveillance videos are kept for 72 hours.