France: Anti-Semitism is a sad reality among angry youths in French slums

Via propublica:

Douhane, the secretary general of the Synergie Officiers police union, has a rare perspective. He’s one of the highest-ranking officers of Muslim descent in the French police, the son of an immigrant bus driver from Algeria. He believes the Paris attacks will cause an unprecedented backlash against extremism among French Muslims.

The reaction among Muslims has been stronger than after the attacks in January that killed 17 people at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish grocery, Douhane said. One victim in those attacks was a policewoman.

The new strike on Paris, ordered this time by Islamic State leaders, “was an attack on the French people, on young people, working neighborhoods, on the art of French living,” he said.

French Muslims were shocked and saddened after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Douhane said. But some had misgivings about the worldwide “I am Charlie” campaign in solidarity with the satirical magazine, which published caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed seen as blasphemous by many Muslims. Feelings were more muted in slums where deprivation and alienation intertwine with criminality and extremism, he said. Anti-Semitism is a sad reality among angry youths in those areas, Douhane said.

“They think that by attacking a grocery they are fighting for their community,” he said. “This mentality is well-ingrained. A rather sizeable minority of young Muslims manifests a brutal, violent and cretinous anti-Semitism.”

read more