The facts date back to February 17, but a video showing the circumstances of the death of Jérémy Cohen, revealed on March 31 by Radio Shalom, comes to sweep away the thesis of a simple accident.
Found thanks to a call for testimony from the family, these images show the 31-year-old man violently attacked by a dozen individuals, before fleeing and finally being hit by a tram.
A judicial investigation for “
intentional violence in a meeting resulting in death without intention to give
it” was opened on March 29.
The victim, of Jewish faith, also suffered from a slight mental disability.
The possibly anti-Semitic nature of this act has not yet been accepted.
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Read alsoDeath of Jérémy Cohen: the Élysée contacted the parents of the young Jew assaulted and then crushed by a tram
Éric Zemmour was one of the first candidates to react.
This Monday, he denounces on Twitter a "
deafening silence on the facts for two months
", and wonders if Jérémy Cohen is "
died to flee the scum
", or "
dead because Jewish
", and "
why is this affair muffled
”.
The same evening, guest of the JT of TF1, the candidate of Reconquest!
explains that his “
first symbolic gesture
”, if he is elected, will be to visit the family of Jérémy Cohen, again denouncing on this occasion a “
media and political omerta
”.
The risk of political recovery
Since Monday, several candidates for the supreme office have taken up this case in turn.
Starting with the outgoing president, Emmanuel Macron.
According to our information, the office of the Head of State met successively with the mother and then the father of the deceased on Monday evening.
At the same time, the Republican candidate, Valérie Pécresse, denounces for her part a “
despicable lynching, which could be of an anti-Semitic nature
”, and recalls her desire to put in place “
zero impunity against barbarians
”.
The revelation of this drama comes just a few days before the first round, on April 10.
A temporality which therefore raises questions for some candidates.
On France Inter this Tuesday, Marine Le Pen believes that “
the real question is that there has not been an instrumentalization by hiding these facts
”.
The Rassemblement national candidate wonders whether a parliamentary inquiry should not be necessary to find out whether "
we did not in reality disguise this dreadful act which consisted in hitting and molesting a young handicapped Jew who suddenly fled and died from this desperate flight, because we did not want to talk about it during the presidential campaign
".
Similar story with the sovereignist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who bluntly affirms this Tuesday on Sud Radio that "
the violence is hidden for pre-election reasons
".
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Also reacting this Tuesday on Sud Radio, the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon underlines that “
the family did a magnificent job
” by recovering the proof of the attack on Jérémy Cohen themselves.
He wonders, however, “
why it is the families who have to make inquiries
”.
The same goes for the ecologist Yannick Jadot, who affirms that “
it is not up to his family to gather the evidence
”.
On Europe 1, the communist Fabien Roussel wishes that "
all the light be shed
" on the circumstances of this attack, and recalls that "
anti-Semitism is a poison of our Republic
".
“ Anti-
Semitism kills, nothing should be ignored, but on the contrary must be fought in broad daylight, with the greatest determination
”, abounds in turn the socialist Anne Hidalgo.
If the anti-Semitic nature of the attack has not yet been proven, the young man's yarmulke would however have been found by the investigators at the scene, according to the family of the deceased.
