French Jewish leaders joined politicians, rights campaigners and some 200 people in eastern Paris on Thursday to mark 10 years since four people were killed in a terrorist attack at a kosher supermarket.
The ceremony took place outside the Hypercacher store at Porte de Vincennes where Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, Yoav Hattab and François-Michel Saada died on 9 January 2015.
The attacker, Amedy Coulibaly, was killed when police stormed the building to free hostages. Coulibaly was linked to the Kouachi brothers who killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo magazine two days earlier.
Relatives and politicians lit 10 candles on a specially constructed altar to remember the victims, including teachers Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard, killed by extremists in 2020 and 2023.
Additional candles honoured victims of anti-Semitism in France, global terrorism and the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
Michel Gugenheim, the chief rabbi of Paris, read The Kaddish – the Jewish prayer for the dead. Rabbi Haïm Korsia and Christophe Le Sourt, of the conference of French bishops, followed with a prayer for the republic.
The 30-minute service was organised by the Crif, an umbrella group representing French Jewish institutions, and will be followed on Thursday night by a debate staged in tandem with Charlie Hebdo on freedom of expression, Islamism and anti-Semitism.
Tributes honour victims a decade after Charlie Hebdo attack shook France
Ongoing cycle of anti-Semitism
Thursday's commemoration ceremony was marred after Stars of David and the word "Jew" were found tagged on buildings near the store and at a local synagogue.
“We’re commemorating Islamist terror attacks of extreme gravity,” said Elie Korchia, head of the Consistoire Central des Israelites de France – the religious organisation of French Jewry.
“But we see that through these tags, insults, through the daily anti-Semitic acts … that the cycle of anti-Semitism has not ended,” he told RFI.
Anti-Semitic acts rose by 192 percent in early 2023 compared to 2022. Crif documented just over 1,670 incidents throughout 2023. The French ministry fighting discrimination reported 1,500 attacks in November 2024 alone.
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An editorial by French daily Liberation headlined “The solitude of France’s Jews" highlighted the vulnerability felt by the community in the wake of the rising number of attacks.
Korchia expressed particular concern about the rise in assaults following the Hamas attack on Israel.
“We cannot accept that in France we can be stigmatised simply because we are Jewish. Of course Jews in France feel isolated because we see these daily anti-Semitic acts continue and increase," he said.
"It’s not enough to just be aware of this, we also have to reflect on what causes this increase in anti-Semitism in 2025 and fight against it in all its forms, including anti-Zionism.”
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