The death of a young Jewish man who was killed by a tram while running away from a mob has pushed crime to the centre of France’s presidential election campaign just days ahead of voting.
A viral video showing Jeremy Cohen being attacked then run over by a tram northeast of Paris in February has prompted President Emmanuel Macron to weigh in on the controversy.
Speaking during an election campaign visit to north-west France on Tuesday, Macron said: “We have all been devastated by the scenes that have been made public and I want to express my solidarity and my support for the family of Jeremy Cohen.”
The President has called for “complete clarity” over the violence, while underlining that Cohen’s death should not become the subject of “political manipulation” after far-right candidate Eric Zemmour suggested that Cohen had been the victim of an anti-Semitic attack.
The victim’s father has alleged that prosecutors have been slow to take up the case and properly investigate the Cohen’s death in Bobigny, a multi-ethnic suburb just outside the capital’s ringroad.
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Anti-semitic motive?
Bobigny prosecutor Eric Mathais told a press conference on Tuesday that there is nothing in the witness statements gathered so far that indicates the attack had a discriminatory motive, appearing to suggest that anti-Semitism was not the cause of the assault.
“Nothing enables us to establish with certainty that the victim was or was not wearing a kippa at the scene of the violence,” he said.
France has witnessed a number of shocking anti-Semitic robberies and murders in recent years, in addition to jihadist attacks that have seen the Jewish community targeted.
The orientation of Cohen’s death into the political arena comes as France votes on Sunday in the first round of presidential elections, with polls indicating that a second-round run-off between Macron and far-right veteran Marine Le Pen is the most likely outcome.
This would mean the final presidential vote would be a repeat of the 2017 elections when Le Pen lost to Macron.
Although crime and immigration were major themes during campaigning last year, they have been eclipsed by worries about the rising cost of living and the current war in Ukraine.
Video of attack on Cohen goes viral
Speaking on the Canal+ television station on Monday, Gerald Cohen – the victim’s father – said that his children had to put up posters themselves to appeal for witnesses to come forward following his son’s death.
They tracked down the video – which has since been widely shared online – showing Cohen being punched and then pursued by a gang of around 10 people.
“We didn’t understand what was happening because we had confidence in the justice system,” Gerald Cohen said. “We didn’t understand why we had to collect the evidence, why we had to do all this.”
Eric Zemmour, who is of Jewish origin, tweeted: “Is he dead because he was Jewish? Why has this scandal been covered up?”
Investigation opened
The Bobigny prosecutor’s office says a probe has been opened to determine the cause of his death, and a second homicide investigation began in late March.
While Zemmour and Le Pen have both suggested the crime had been covered up, hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said “the question that needs to be asked is why families need to do their own investigations.
“Normally it’s the police,” he said.
Bobigny is part of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, France’s poorest area with the highest levels of violent crime on the mainland.
Zemmour has consistently called Seine-Saint-Denis “a foreign enclave” and a symbol of the “colonisation” of France by immigrants.
