A 14-year-old Jewish boy was attacked outside a shul in Lyon, France, last week in what prosecutors are investigating as an antisemitic assault.

The assault occurred on August 22, when the boy was approached by a man in his 20s while walking home alone. According to the victim’s father, the assailant asked if the boy smoked, then hurled antisemitic insults before kicking him in the hip. The teenager required medical treatment and was given two days of leave for his injuries, Libération reported.

Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran confirmed the case is being investigated as “aggravated violence against a minor due to religious affiliation.” No arrests have been made.

Lyon Mayor Grégory Doucet said he was “deeply shocked” by the assault. “As mayor and as a citizen, I condemn with the greatest firmness these antisemitic acts,” Doucet said, vowing that perpetrators must be “identified and punished with the full force of the law.”

The city will also replant a tree in memory of Ilan Halimi – a French-Jewish man tortured and murdered in 2006 in a ransom plot motivated by antisemitism – which was attacked and destroyed in a separate recent antisemitic incident.

The latest attack comes amid escalating tensions between Paris, Jerusalem, and Washington over France’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state next month. Jewish leaders have warned that anti-Israel rhetoric from French political parties is fueling violence on the streets.

Yonathan Arfi, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, blasted the government’s statehood push, warning it was emboldening extremist movements like La France Insoumise (LFI), a far-left party accused of normalizing antisemitic rhetoric.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently accused President Emmanuel Macron of contributing to antisemitism by advancing recognition of Palestinian statehood. Macron fired back, charging Netanyahu with “weaponizing antisemitism” while insisting that Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank provide “a pretext for antisemitism” worldwide.

U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner issued a public rebuke of Macron’s government, warning that antisemitic assaults, synagogue vandalism, and attacks on Jewish-owned businesses in France occur “nearly every day.”

France recorded 1,570 antisemitic incidents in 2024, one of the highest totals on record, according to the SPCJ Jewish security service. That included 106 physical assaults, the most in over a decade.

Jewish security watchdog BNVCA has noted that most of the attacks are carried out by individuals from Muslim backgrounds.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)