A Jewish boy at a Paris school was beaten today by youths who taunted him with anti-Semitic chants, according to The Associated Press. The boy, 12, did not suffer physical injury.
The beating occurred as emotions are running high in France after the murders of three Jewish children by an Islamic extremist in Toulouse who also killed four others and wounded another four.
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Both the shootings and the beating occurred at schools in the Ozar Hatorah network of Jewish day schools, according to the news agency.
Meanwhile, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported, that the father of the gunman Mohamed Merah intended to sue the French government for having killed his son.
Merah was killed last week at the end of a 32-hour siege by police.
“I will hire the greatest lawyers and work the rest of my life to pay their fees,” Mohamed Benalei Merah was quoted as saying. “France is a large country which had the means to arrest my son alive. The could have knocked him out with gas arrested him. They preferred to kill him.”
Mohamed Benalei Merah lives in Algeria, 210 miles west of the capital, Algiers.
The boy was punched in the back of his head as he left the school in Southeast Paris, the AP said, citing Katia Normal, the schools head of human resources. The attackers were two boys a few years older than the victim.
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President Nicolas Sarkozy last week ordered an increase in security at Jewish and Muslim schools and houses of worship but today’s event happened 100 meters from the school entrance, out of view of the police guard, according to the AP.
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