Group Calls For Boycott Of French Supermarket That Removed Israeli Produce
(JTA) — A French-Jewish watchdog on anti-Semitism has called for a boycott of a supermarket where staff was seen removing Israeli produce at the request of a shopper who complained citing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and violence in Gaza.
The Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, on Monday also said in a statement that it had complained to police about the incident, which was filmed last month at the store of the Carrefour supermarket chain in the Parisian suburb of Chambourcy.
Selling dates from the brand Sun on Ramadan “is an affront to Muslim shoppers,” a man rapidly speaking in French tells the manager, citing “what they are doing in Gaza.” The manager is seen placing the packages of dates in a trolley and removing them from the shelf as the man who complained about the dates thanks him.
The complainant is seen telling a shopper about a different brand of dates: “These are good, they’re from Algeria.”
The Israeli dates were later returned to the shelves, a Carrefour spokesperson told Le Figaro in an article published Monday. Carrefour “offers merchandise from adheres to a strict neutrality on politics, philosophy and religion,” the spokesperson added.
CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, told Le Figaro that the boycott actions “are mixed in with anti-Semitic acts. Through Israel, the Jews are targeted here.” CRIF has also filed police complaints against boycott actions such as the one documented last month in Chambourcy. Sammy Ghozlan, a leader of BNVCA, in a statement condemned what he called the actions of “an Islamist police” in French supermarkets.
BNVCA said the act was “discriminatory.” Promoting a boycott against a nation is illegal in France, where dozens of activists for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel have been convicted for inciting hatred or discrimination.
Contact Alyssa Fisher at [email protected]
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
