France moves to ban Jewish Defence League, report

The French government is considering banning the Jewish Defence League (LDJ), a radical Jewish group whose members recently clashed with pro-Palestinian activists after Gaza solidarity demonstrations in Paris, reports say.

Demonstators outside a Paris bookshop attacked by the Jewish Defence League in 2009 AFP

The interior ministry is making the “most precise analysis possible to be sure that it’s possible”, a police source in the interior ministry told Libération newspaper on Thursday.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve this week said that the LDJ, which has no official existence, has gone too far after press reports revealed its role in provoking clashes near a Paris synagogue after a pro-Gaza protest earlier this month.

Organisations can be banned in France for inciting discrimination and racial hatred or if they constitute a militia.

“The Jewish Defence League is a militia,” Middle East analyst Dominique Vidal told RFI. “They are known exclusively for their violent activities. The league has openly displayed a racist ideology for a long time. These are young people who are learning martial arts, including krav maga which is unique to the Israeli army. Some people even say that officers of the Israeli army are training league members.”

Video showing LDJ members brandishing table legs, hammers and other weapons were posted on social media after the 13 July pro-Gaza demonstration and the clashes with pro-Palestinians, whom they had challenged to fight in tweets beforehand, led to reports that a synagogue had been attacked and the banning of two subsequent demonstrations.

In June two LDJ sympathisers were sentenced to 10 months in jail for planting a bomb under the car of a young Jewish blogger who had criticised Israel’s policies and several other attacks on “pro-Palos”.

Tweets and social media postings in its name have claimed that “assimiliation and mixed marriage have cost more Jewish lives than the Shoah” and welcomed the anti-Islamic stance of the far-right Front National, whose former leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has been found guilty of anti-Semitic hate speech.

Although it has never registered its existence with the authorities, the French LDJ was founded in 2001, using the name and logo of an organisation banned in Israel for racism and in the US as a terrorist organisation.

Cazeneuve on Thursday said that action may be taken against all groups that “could pose problems”.

The far-left New Anticapitalist Party, which has led defiance of the ban on pro-Gaza demonstrations, on Friday called the possible ban a “smokescreen” to hide France’s economic ties with Israel.

While accepting that the LDJ should be banned if it “multiplies violent actions”, Front National leader Marine Le Pen said that its existence showed Jews feel endangered by a “new anti-Semitism” and that the government should do more to defend them.