A delegation of 40 French Members of Parliament has arrived in Israel to commemorate 65 years of diplomatic ties between France and Israel. The delegation, which includes members of the Senate, national committee, mayors and former ministers, is the largest parliamentary group ever to visit Israel.

Upon their arrival, and despite their extremely busy schedule, the delegation’s members asked to visit the families Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shayer and Naftali Frenkel. On Sunday morning, they visited Frenkel’s parents in Nof Ayalon, telling the boy’s parents that their hearts are filled with prayer, appreciation and love for them and the boys. “Your smile strengthens us,” said one parliamentarian to Naftali’s mother, Racheli.

Meyer Haviv, head of the delegation, told Tazpit News Agency that the visitors expressed their sorrow for the poor and insufficient coverage this tragic event has received in the French media.

“Unfortunately, the French public is more interested in the World Cup than it is in the kidnapping,” explained Haviv.

Racheli responded that her son was also really looking forward to the tournament. “Naftali is just a normal child who ultimately just wanted to return home from school” she told the French visitors.

According to Haviv, the visit with the family left a profound impression with the delegation member. “Our visit was held under a very dark cloud of a tremendously dramatic event which hasn’t received enough coverage in France. When you come face to face with such courageous people, it is certainly impossible to remain indifferent.”

The delegation’s members expressed their sympathy and solidarity with the victims of terror. “Sadly we are personally acquainted with acts of terrorism, as it has struck us as well with the shooting and killing of innocents in Brussels and Toulouse,” said Haviv. Claude Goasguen, a former minister in the French government and the representative of the 16th quarter in the French Parliament, stated that he is determined to do everything he can to spread the family’s message.

“Although the issue is currently not receiving enough of the public’s attention in the world, we are aware of the power and influence embedded within the social networks, and it is beginning to pick up. We will make sure to spread the message in order to ensure the boys safe return to their homes as soon as possible. As far as we are concerned, there is no difference between these Israeli boys and the kidnapped girls in Nigeria and we join the families in prayer for their sons return,” said Goasguen.

The Frenkel family was touched by the parliament members’ visit. “It truly strengthens us to see this type of support from overseas. We hope to meet you again together with our son Naftali soon,” Racheli Frenkel told the delegation.

JSSNews reports that 2 men on a scooter, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and handguns approached a Paris shul on Shabbat afternoon, in Paris’s 20 district.

The fled upon seeing the police. No shots were fired.

Mehdi Nemmouch has conditioned his acceptance of extradition to Belgium to stand trial there, on the condition he won’t be extradited to Israel.

Mehdi Nemmouch (29) is the French Muslim who killed 4 people at the Brussel’s Jewish Museum on May 24, 2014. He was captured in France when his car was pulled over for other unrelated reasons.

The French court will decide by June 26 whether to accept his request. If turned down, Nemmouch can appeal the extradition order in a higher court.

Two Jewish teenagers reported that they were sprayed with tear gas in an attack in Sarcelles, a northern suburb of Paris.

The teens, who were wearing kippot, said they were attacked on Saturday night, according to a report posted Monday on the website of the National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA.

The attack, which was captured by a nearby security system, reportedly was perpetrated by a group of youths ages eight to 17, of “North African origin,” according to the BNVCA.

The attack comes less than a week after two Jewish teenagers told police they were chased on Shavuot eve by a hatchet-wielding man and three others in Romainville, a northeastern suburb of Paris.

Last month, BNVCA and SPCJ, the watchdog of France’s Jewish communities, documented two suspected anti-Semitic beatings of Jews in the Paris suburb of Creteil. Also last month, police received a report about three men who were filming the entrance to the local Jewish school of Creteil, Otzar Hatora.
 

The leader of France’s National Front, Marine Le Pen, has distanced herself from anti-Semitic comments by father – not because she disagrees, but rather because the comments were “a political error.”

Sunday, National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen criticised several critics, including former tennis champion Yannick Noah, Madonna and one Jewish critic,  singer Patrick Bruel. Le Pen said Bruel would be part of “a batch we will get next time,” using the word “fournee,” French for “batch.” The implication was apparently a reference to Nazi ovens. , evoking the word “four” (“oven”).

It is not clear if French President François Hollande, Prime Minister Manuel Valls or new Opposition Leader Michèle Tabarot responded to Le Pen’s remarks.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder called on the french government to strip Le Pen of his diplomatic immunity  – most European countries have laws limiting Holocaust speech and imagery. The elder Le Pen founded the National Front party in 1972 and has been convicted several times on racism charges. He has also called the Nazi gas chambers “a detail in the history of World War II.”

Roger Cukierman, head of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France, said “We are shocked by Jean-Marie Le Pen’s anti-Semitic, provocative statements. The honorary president of the National Front again is displaying his habitual anti-Semitism, for which he has been condemned many times. The CRIF calls on all democrats to promote inter-ethnic comity and to condemn such postures of hatred.”

(JTA) — Police arrested two men in the severe beating of a Jewish man in Creteil, a Paris suburb.

It was the second anti-Semitic attack there in the last week, a local Jewish watchdog group said.

In the later attack, on May 30, three men in their 20s hit the Jewish man in his face inside his apartment building, SPCJ, the watchdog and security unit of France’s Jewish communities, wrote in a report of the incident that it released to the media on Sunday. During the attack, the report said, the assailants accused the victim of calling the police on them the previous night.

The victim broke his elbow after the assailants caused him to fall down, the SPCJ report said. The hit to the face injured his nose. The Jewish man, who was not named in the report, said the perpetrators hurled anti-Semitic insults at him during the attack, including “you Jews are all the same” and “dirty Jew.” They also told him that they knew where he and his wife and children lived.

Five days earlier, unidentified men assaulted two Jewish brothers, aged 18 and 21, in Creteil. The attackers used brass knuckles and caused serious but not life-threatening injuries. SPCJ reported that the two Jews were wearing kippahs and are believed to have been targeted because they are Jewish.

The following day, three men were spotted filming the entrance to a Jewish school, Ozar-Hatorah, which is located in the Echat a Creteil district of the southern Parisian suburb, the online edition of the Le Parisien daily reported.

The incidents occurred days after the slaying on May 24 of four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels.

On Friday, police in Marseille, France, arrested 29-year-old Mehdi Mennouche, a native of France, on suspicion that he shot the four victims. French police sources said Mennouche had become a radicalized Muslim in prison and then left Europe to fight with jihadists in Syria.

French intelligence authorities have apparently let one of the country’s premier terror suspects slip the country.

According to the French-language BFMTV website, Souad Merah, Salafi Muslim and a member of one of France’s premier terror groups, escaped police surveillance as well as the the French Central Directorate of Internal Intelligenc, just a month after her most recent arrest.

Merah is the sister of Mohamed Merah, the Islamist terrorist who killed four Jews, including three children, outside a yeshiva in Toulouse in 2012.

As a fully-veiled Muslim woman, it was not difficult for Merah to leave the country. She is believed to have travelled to Syria with her four children.

According to the European Jewish Press, the DCRI believes that Souad Merah is even more dangerous than her infamous brother.The website described her as “a follower of a rigorous and conquering Islam” and said she has told police that she was proud of her brothers killing spree.

Following her comments, the Bureau National de Vigilance Contre l’Antisemitisme filed a complaint against her for advocating terrorism, but the court ruled that her testimony was invalid because she did not know she was being recorded.

Responding to Merah’s escape, BNVCA leader Sammy Ghozlan called on police ”to act quickly to find and imprison the radical dangerous Islamist who, like several hundred French citizens brainwashed into jihad.

“(These people) are trained to guerrilla and are likely to commit attacks, primarily targeting Jewish people, sites and schools in France,” Ghozlan told the EJP.