Several Jewish schools across Paris were evacuated on Monday due to a terrorist threat, The Jerusalem Post reported, citing sources in the French Jewish community.
According to the report, an anonymous threat was received that “bombs would blow up in 20 different Jewish schools in the Paris area.”
Some educational institutions were evacuated, while others asked parents to take their children home as security forces searched for explosive devices, according to the report.
“Even though everyone is okay, this event caused panic among parents. We’re going through a rough period and the situation in Israel has its effect on us as well,” a Jewish communal leader told the newspaper.
A representative of the Jewish community in Paris confirmed to JNS that there was a bomb scare for 20 schools in the French capital.
A few of the schools were evacuated so that authorities could search the premises, said the source.
The schools are currently back to normal, he added.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, French authorities recorded more than 800 antisemitic crimes, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the country’s BFM TV network on Monday.
The month of October saw almost twice as many antisemitic incidents than was the case in all of 2022, Darmanin revealed. So far, 414 people have been arrested.
“I understand the fear that French people of Jewish origin are experiencing, and I want to tell them that they are protected,” Darmanin told BFM TV.
“We are putting very substantial resources into protecting French people of Jewish faith, synagogues, schools, as well as other communal places,” he added.
France is home to one of the largest Muslim immigrant communities in Europe, and also has the largest Jewish community outside Israel and the United States, estimated at about 500,000 people.
