Arson strikes French kosher supermarket a decade after Islamist terrorist attack

In January 2015, Amedy Coulibaly murdered four Jews at the Hyper Cacher in Paris.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

An arsonist set fire to the entrance of a kosher supermarket in Paris on Wednesday night as French officials marked a decade since a terrorist murdered four Jewish people there a decade ago.

Security cameras caught a man setting fire to four containers placed in front of the entrance to the Hyper Cacher grocery around 2 a,m. He then set ablaze a nearby dumpster used for construction material.

Although firefighters arrived quickly to put out the fires, the front wall was damaged, and an interior wall was lightly blackened.

Police confirmed that they were investigating the case and looking for the suspect.

The criminal incident occurred hours before French President Emmanuel Macron attended a memorial ceremony observing the 10th anniversary of a terror attack at the same store.

On January 9, 2015, Islamic State jihadist Amedy Coulibaly entered Hyper Cacher armed with several weapons and killed four Jews who unsuccessfully tried to overcome him. He then took 19 shoppers and staff hostage, demanding in negotiations that police not harm two Islamist terrorists who had been found by the authorities that day after murdering 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine offices two days previously and then fleeing.

Hours later, police stormed the supermarket and killed Coulibaly as he was shooting and charging at them, wounding two officers.

Several local politicians marked the timing of the latest incident, as well as the huge upsurge in antisemitism in France ever since October7, 2023.

“Antisemitic acts have exploded in recent months, and we have further proof of this with this arson attack,” Maxime Sauvage, first deputy mayor of the 20th arrondissement of Paris and national secretary of the Socialist Party, posted to X.

“As if it wasn’t enough to have experienced the horror of 2015, this arson attack plunges us back into what we have to fight every day,” said his colleague, Deputy Mayor Lila Djellali.

A local Jew, Brigit D’jean, agreed, lamenting that “very few people understand what we’ve been through” and charging that “there’s a certain indifference when it comes to the Jewish community.”

In a January report, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) noted, “For the second consecutive year, we are facing a historic number of anti-Semitic acts.”

Whereas for the decade preceding 2023 the number of reported antisemitic incidents per year swung between 311 and 851, in 2023 it shot up to 1,676, with the vast majority occurring after October 7, the report said.

In 2024, the number dropped only some six percent to 1,570.

Interest in the Jewish community in emigrating, especially to Israel, has exploded, as its faith in the French authorities has been shaken.