Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
These images of Muslims protesting against Islamophobia in Paris and wearing stars reminiscent of those that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis have caused outrage on social media and in the French press.
The incident took place on Sunday 10th November in the French capital Paris during protests against Islamophobia which saw some protesters wearing yellow stars on their chests.
The images, which are widely circulating on social media, have reminded many netizens of the horrors of Nazism, when during the 1930s and the Third Reich, Jews were forced to wear yellow stars.
One picture in particular shows protesters marching alongside Esther Benbassa, a senator representing the Val-de-Marne department. They can be seen wearing a yellow star – which unlike the six-pointed Jewish Star of David has five points – which has the word “Muslim” in its centre. Next to it is a yellow crescent.
Many politicians and movers and shakers in the Jewish community in France have reportedly been reacting with outrage since Sunday evening.
Alain Jakubowicz, the former President of the LICRA (Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisemitisme; the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism) said: “If it should come to pass that this little girl were one day to end her life in a gas chamber I would be ready to sacrifice mine to avoid it. But today this picture is nauseating and those who have put this star on her have dishonoured themselves.”
His Tweet has so far been liked 5,900 times and retweeted 2,700 times since yesterday evening.
For MP Aurore Berge from the LREM party (La Republique En Marche; President Macron’s party), the “comparison is indecent.”
She added: “The situation of Muslims in our country is in no way comparable to that of the Jews in the 30s and 40s.”
The imam of the mosque of Bordeaux, Tareq Oubrou, called the incident a “slip-up”. He added: “The people who sported this yellow star do not know the history of the Jews in France. We cannot make comparisons like that, we are not in the 30s.”
He continued: “It is a mistake that does not suit this event.”
Ariel Goldmann, President of the United Jewish Social Fund, said: “No Muslim in France suffers what our parents suffered during WWII and I wish them never to suffer.”
Benbassa is a 69-year-old senator and a French-Turkish-Israeli historian who has authored numerous books on Jewish studies. Born in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, she moved to Israel when she was 15 and then to France in 1972, becoming a French citizen in 1974. She has been a member of France’s Senate since 2011.
Many netizens have expressed outrage, with ‘PAT2’ saying: “This senator is a scandal for the state! Exclude her from the senate!”
While ‘Sara’ said: “@netanyahu I join you to express my disgust for she who manipulated this child.”
The controversial march was reportedly attended by 13,500 people.
Benbassa has in the meantime, defended herself on social media, saying over the course of numerous tweets that she is not antisemitic, and that as a “Jew” herself, she has “spent her life writing the history of her people.”
She also said: “That our stigmatised contemporaries identify with these past sufferings is quite understandable. Nobody steals their suffering here from anyone else.”
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