Two “African type” teenagers have been arrested after a pregnant woman was assaulted and robbed at gunpoint in her home in Paris for being “Jewish and therefore rich”.
Last month, two 16-year-olds were accused of having broken into the home of a 26-year-old Jewish woman in Paris to allegedly “commit extortion with a weapon”. The two suspects were arrested this week in the Val-d’Oise suburb area outside the French capital.
According to police sources speaking to the Le Figaro newspaper, the two suspects were both born in France, however, one is described as being “of the African type” while the other is characterised as being “of the North African type”. The pair were also described as previously being “unfavourably known to the police services.”
The paper reported that on November 23rd, two men came to the door of the pregnant woman disguised as delivery men wearing coronavirus-style masks. After she answered the door, they forced their way into her apartment, grabbing her by the throat and threatening her with a handgun.
While she immediately gave over some of her jewellery and money, the two masked men were not satisfied and strangled her until she lost consciousness. The two thieves are said to have walked away with 6,000 euros of jewellery, 400 euros and 150 dollars in cash.
The woman, who was four months pregnant at the time of the attack, was forced to spend several days in the hospital but has since been released.
According to Le Figaro, the two teenage suspects have confessed to the robbery but claimed that they acted upon another man, whom they have so far refused to name to the police. They claimed that they were told to target the woman “because she is Jewish and therefore rich”.
They were arrested after police discovered that they had used an Uber equivalent to travel to the home, meaning that their names were logged with the service.
The two sixteen-year-olds appeared before the Pontoise judicial court on December 7, however, it is currently unclear what punishment they face. Due to the French legal system’s protections for minors, their identities cannot be revealed to the public.
The attack comes amid a surge of antisemitism in France following the October 7th Hamas terror attacks on Israel, with thousands of antisemitic crimes being recorded since then, including Jewish areas of Paris being vandalised with Stars of David graffiti in incidents reminiscent of the Nazi era of the 1940s.
