Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin said Tuesday that he had launched a probe aimed at finding the perpetrators of an “aggravated murder attempt” on Rudy Haddad, a Jewish teenager (reported HERE on YWN)

Haddad who was severely beaten at the head by a gang of black Africans youths after leaving a Lubavitch Shul located in a multi-ethnic area, came out of a 36-hour coma on Monday.

“There was the will to attack in particular a person of Jewish origin,,” Marin said. 
 
The French prosecutor told reporters that the teenager had been beaten by a gang after having taken part in street brawls between Jewish teenagers and youths of north African and sub-Saharan descent.

He said anti-Semitic insults were shouted during the aggression.
 
Sources quoted in the press reported that several brawls broke out in the area on Shabbos afternoon between Jewish and North Africans and black youth groups, and that Haddad was attacked later on the day when he was walking alone in Rue Petit.

The French press reported that Haddad had been involved last December in incidents between communities but Sammy Ghozlan, head of the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, denied that the young man was a member of Betar or of the Jewish Defense League.
 
The new chief rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, said Tuesday the attack against Haddad was “manifestly” anti-Semitic after declaring on Monday that the anti-Semitic character was “probable but not certain.”
 
The rabbi, who was elected last Sunday, declared in a interview with Radio J: “I want things to be very clear. What happened this weekend is something filthy, manifestly anti-Semitic, of a rare violence.”
 
He visited Haddad at Cochin Public Assistance hospital on Monday.
 
“When one wants to kill a Jew, when one wants to massacre a Jew, there is no justification to such an act.”

(Source: EJP)