Attackers Scrawl Swastikas on Woman

Six teenagers attacked a young mother on a suburban Paris train, chopping off her hair and scribbling swastikas on her stomach in what leaders denounced Sunday as an example of growing anti-Semitism.

As the 23-year-old woman was assaulted Friday, other passengers on the train watched but did nothing to help her or her infant, who was knocked out of a stroller. Neither was seriously injured.

Jewish and Muslim leaders condemned the attack, President Jacques Chirac expressed “dread,” and politicians of all stripes voiced shock.

“To be Jewish today in France has become an aggravating circumstance,” said Sylvain Zenouda, of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism.

Police said the attackers, armed with knives, grabbed the woman’s backpack and took her money and credit cards. When they saw that her identification card said she lived in the 16th district of Paris, they told her: “There are only Jews in the 16th.”

The suspects then cut off the woman’s hair, sliced open her shirt and drew the swastikas on her with markers, police said.

State Secretary for Victims Rights Nicole Guedj called on commuters who witnessed the attack to step forward.

“Those who can help must do so today,” she said on the French television station LCI. “It’s the duty of every good citizen.”

The Interior Ministry said the woman was not Jewish, and police said she no longer lives in the 16th district.

That the attackers mistook their victim’s identity did nothing to soften the horror in France, where assaults on both Jews and Muslims have escalated in the last several years.

France is home to the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in western Europe.

The president of the umbrella group the French Council for the Muslim Faith, Dalil Boubakeur, called the attack “sickening” and “low-grade banditry.”