French Jews Condemn Violent Rioting at Corsica Mosque
Image by Getty Images
The umbrella group of French Jewish communities condemned rioting at a mosque on the French island of Corsica, which occurred following an assault on two firemen there.
The events referenced in the statement by the CRIF umbrella group Saturday occurred in the Corsican municipality of Ajaccio on Christmas Day. Demonstrators ransacked a Muslim prayer hall and attempted to burn copies of the Koran, police said, following a night of violence that left two firefighters and a police officer injured.
They were wounded in Jardins de L’Empereur, a low-income neighborhood of the city when they were “ambushed” by “several hooded youths,” authorities said, according to France24.
Following “attacks on firefighters, and the desecration of a Muslim house of worship in Corsica, CRIF condemns firmly these anti-republican actions,” the group’s communications department wrote on Twitter Saturday.
In France, the term “anti-republican” is used to describe actions or opinions deemed contrary to the values of the French republic.
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
