Three Jewish Men Threatened With Knife in Paris as Antisemitic Attacks Surge

Three Jewish men were harassed by a knife-wielding individual in Paris, in the latest antisemitic incident to spark outrage within France’s Jewish community, prompting local authorities to launch a criminal investigation and bolster security amid a rising tide of antisemitism.

On Friday, three Jewish men wearing kippahs were physically threatened with a knife and forced to flee after leaving their Shabbat services near the Trocadéro in southwest Paris’s 16th arrondissement, European Jewish Press reported.

As the victims were leaving a nearby synagogue and walking through the neighborhood, they noticed a man staring at them. The assailant then approached the group and repeatedly asked, “Are you Jews? Are you Israelis?”

When one of them replied “yes,” the man pulled a knife from his pocket and began threatening the group. The victims immediately ran and found police officers nearby. None of the victims were injured.

Local police opened an investigation into acts of violence with a weapon and religiously motivated harassment after all three men filed formal complaints.

Jérémy Redler, mayor of Paris’s 16th arrondissement, publicly condemned the attack, expressing his full support for the victims.

“I will continue to fight relentlessly against antisemitism,” he wrote in a social media post. “Acts of hatred and violence targeting any community have no place in Paris.”

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) also denounced the incident, calling for a swift investigation and stronger action to safeguard Jewish communities amid a surge in antisemitic attacks.

“An attack targeting individuals because of their Jewish identity is unacceptable and incompatible with the values of our democratic societies,” the EJC wrote in a post on X. 

“Ensuring that Jews can live, worship and participate fully in public life in safety and dignity must remain a fundamental priority,” the statement said. 

The knife threat against three young Jewish men returning from synagogue in Paris is a matter of serious concern.

An attack targeting individuals because of their Jewish identity is unacceptable and incompatible with the values of our democratic societies.

The swift… pic.twitter.com/PsxmP0CeLk

— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) February 9, 2026

Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, France has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to the French Interior Ministry, the first six months of 2025 saw more than 640 antisemitic incidents, a 27.5 percent decline from the same period in 2024, but a 112.5 percent increase compared to the first half of 2023, before the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Last week, a Jewish primary school in eastern Paris was vandalized, with windows smashed and security equipment damaged, prompting a criminal investigation and renewed outrage among local Jewish leaders as targeted antisemitic attacks continued to escalate.

Amid a growing climate of hostility toward Jews and Israelis across the country, the French government is facing mounting criticism as the legal system appears to be falling short in addressing antisemitism.

In one of the most recent and controversial cases, a French court tossed out antisemitic-motivated charges against a 55-year-old man convicted of murdering his 89-year-old Jewish neighbor in 2022.

French authorities in Lyon, in southeastern France, acquitted defendant Rachid Kheniche of aggravated murder charges on antisemitic grounds, rejecting the claim that the killing was committed on account of the victim’s religion.

According to French media, the magistrate of the public prosecutor’s office refused to consider the defendant’s prior antisemitic behavior, including online posts spreading hateful content and promoting conspiracy theories about Jews and Israelis, arguing that it was not directly related to the incident itself.

In May 2022, Kheniche threw his neighbor, René Hadjadj, from the 17th floor of his building, an act to which he later admitted.

At the time, Kheniche and his neighbor were having a discussion when the conflict escalated. He told investigators that he had tried to strangle Hadjadj but did not realize what he was doing, as he was experiencing a paranoid episode caused by prior drug use.

After several psychiatric evaluations, the court concluded that the defendant was mentally impaired at the time of the crime, reducing his criminal responsibility and lowering the maximum sentence for murder to 20 years.

In another case last year, the public prosecutor’s office in Nanterre, just west of Paris, appealed a criminal court ruling that cleared a nanny of antisemitism-aggravated charges after she poisoned the food and drinks of the Jewish family she worked for.

Even though the nanny initially denied the charges against her, she later confessed to police that she had poured a soapy lotion into the family’s food as a warning because “they were disrespecting her.”

“They have money and power, so I should never have worked for a Jewish woman — it only brought me trouble,” the nanny told the police. “I knew I could hurt them, but not enough to kill them.”

The French court declined to uphold any antisemitism charges against the defendant, noting that her incriminating statements were made several weeks after the incident and recorded by a police officer without a lawyer present.

In another shocking case last year, a local court in France dramatically reduced the sentence of one of the two teenagers convicted of the brutal gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, citing his “need to prepare for future reintegration.”

More than a year after the attack, the Versailles Court of Appeal retried one of the convicted boys — the only one to challenge his sentence — behind closed doors, ultimately reducing his term from nine to seven years and imposing an educational measure.