Ilan Halimi was kidnapped because his captors mistakenly believed the young man would have money for being Jewish, and they subjected the victim to brutality for this reason. Although antisemitic acts in France have decreased by 16% to reach 1,320 in 2025, “they have never been as high as in the last three years” and represent 53% of all anti-religious acts, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior published on Thursday, while Jews make up no more than 1% of the French population. Their sharp increase comes after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. For the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), Yonathan Arfi, it is “important (through this tribute) to tell French Jews that they are not alone in the face of antisemitism”. “Antisemitism dresses in new clothes”, “adopts the faces of anti-Zionism, hatred of Israel (...) Islamism, conspiracy theories”, he warns in an interview with AFP, cited by RFI. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Friday denounced the “hydra of antisemitism” that infiltrates “every nook and cranny” of society and advocated for a “mandatory ineligibility penalty” for elected officials guilty of “antisemitic, racist and discriminatory acts and statements”. The statements occurred within the framework of the commemoration of the murder of Ilan Halimi, a French Jew who was kidnapped and tortured to death in 2006 by a gang, reported by RFI and accessed by Agencia Noticias Argentinas. Macron paid tribute to Halimi by planting an oak tree in the gardens of the Élysée after several trees installed in his memory were vandalized in a context of resurgent antisemitism in France. “Too often, the penalties imposed on the perpetrators of antisemitic crimes and offenses seem insignificant. In the name of transparency and truth, I wish that a precise follow-up of penalties and sanctions be established,” he also declared on Friday. Kidnapped, held, and tortured for more than three weeks, Ilan Halimi was found dying alongside a road in the Paris suburbs. Twenty-four people were convicted in this case, including Youssouf Fofana, the leader of what was then called the “Barbarians’ gang”.
