Latest insanity plea reflects reluctance by French to confront antisemitism

A man who has been found unfit to stand trial after telling a French court that he “wanted to kill a Jew” is the latest defendant to use successfully an insanity defence for an alleged antisemitic crime in France.

The unnamed twenty-year-old defendant told a judge that before the attack on his neighbour in April 2019 in Bourdon, northern France, “robots” had told him “to kill a Jew”. The man stabbed his 58-year-old neighbour, who is not Jewish. The victim had only moderate injuries and survived.

The defendant was deemed not criminally responsible for his actions and ordered to remain at a psychiatric hospital.

Last year, a French Appeals Court made a similar judgment regarding a man who had killed a Jewish woman in her home while shouting Koranic verses and calling her a “demon.” Despite being deemed “antisemitic” by the judge, the man was said to be in a “delirious episode” brought on by marijuana.

French Jewish organisations claim that these cases reflect a reluctance by the French judiciary to confront antisemitism.

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