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New twist to anti-Semitic attack

Paris: The story horrified a country already sensitive to the charge of growing anti-Semitism. A young mother with a baby daughter described how she had been robbed and physically and verbally assaulted while on a Paris suburban train. As fellow passengers looked on passively, a gang of six supposedly chopped off her hair, slashed open her clothes with knives, knocked her child out of its pram, and shouted anti-Semitic abuse, she alleged. Coming 24 hours after the French President, Jacques Chirac, launched a national campaign against the spread of anti-Semitism, the President broke off his weekend to condemn the attack as `odious.' The woman's tale was headline news across Europe, but by Tuesday it had taken a remarkable twist. It became clear that not only was the attack not anti-Semitic in any traditional sense (the victim was not a Jew) but also it was not an attack at all. The woman confessed to having made it all up, authorities said. . A thorough study of CCTV footage at the stations where they allegedly got on and got off found no trace of the six North African teenagers. Nor did it find the alleged victim, identified only as Marie, or her pushchair. Marie's mother then admitted her daughter had some mental health problems and a tendency to fantasise. —

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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