Jewish students attacked outside school in suburban Paris

(JTA) — Students and faculty of a predominantly Jewish school near Paris reported two attacks and a break-in in the space of 48 hours.

The first attack against students of the ORT high school in Montreuil, an eastern suburb of the French capital, occurred on Nov. 19 just outside the institution’s gates, according to a statement issued by the school. Six young men started hitting a small group of students “in a very determined way and without any provocation or even exchanging words.”

Pupils who rushed to their schoolmates’ aid, including one non-Jewish ORT student of Turkish descent, also were attacked, according to ORT.  The attackers slammed one of them against a parking meter.

“He was severely beaten by the attackers, who fractured his nose and broke several of his teeth,” according to ORT’s report on the incident. Police were called to the scene but the attackers had already left.

The following day, a 17-year-old Jewish female ORT student was attacked verbally and physically in a Metro station. The girl said she was waiting for a friend at Montreuil station when she was approached by a group of five men who she described as “North African.” The report said the five men, one of them wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress, shoved her and told her to keep quiet or they would push her on the rails when the Metro train comes “like they did in Gaza.”

A third incident was discovered the same day when security guards tried to detain a man in his 30s who was spotted on school premises. He fled after telling the guards he was Muslim and that his presence there showed they had security failures, the report said.