If the terrorist threat has been ruled out for the moment, security forces remain on alert after the attack on Israel by Hamas on Saturday. The French authorities are in fact particularly attentive to any sign that could reveal a spread of the conflict in the country, which has both the strongest Muslim community and the largest Jewish community in Europe. As proof, the meeting organized on Monday at Place Beauvau by Gérald Darmanin with representatives of the worried Jewish community of France and the security services.
However, there is “at this stage no proven terrorist threat” on French soil, according to a security source. The intelligence services nevertheless note that at a time when “certain Islamist influencers or supporters of an ultra-left line attribute responsibility for events to Israel”, this country’s response with the bombing of the Gaza Strip is “already” interpreted as an “aggression against the Palestinian people and more generally against the Arab world”.
Vigilance around Jewish places
This creates, according to the services cited by this security source, “a risk of violent reaction in protest”, either through demonstrations against Jewish places of worship (as was the case in July 2014), or through “individual action of hostility or even violence, in support of the Palestinians”.
The services note that the first incidents that have occurred since Saturday around Jewish places of worship testify to the “warlike state of mind” of a certain number of people. Recalling that Jewish interests have always been designated “as legitimate targets by Islamist terrorist organizations”, they believe that we must “remain very attentive to the risk of isolated action in the name of defending Islam”.
The ultra-right divided between hatred of Jews and hatred of Muslims
Regarding ultra-right extremist movements, they observe that they are today “divided between their hatred of Muslims and, for some, that of Jews”. Some members of this movement “read this conflict in the light of an inevitable confrontation between the West and the “Arab world” which wants to destroy it, and call for a union against the Muslims”, which generates, according to the services, “a risk of taking action against the Muslim community”.
Others, on the contrary, they continue, “welcome Hamas’ action against the ‘Jewish people’, their anti-Semitism taking precedence over their hatred of Muslims.” Here too, this creates “a risk of violent action against Jewish sites”. In this changing situation, the services have “strongly” reinforced their vigilance. On Monday, the Minister of the Interior reported around twenty “anti-Semitic acts” and “ten people arrested” since Saturday.