One of Ours

The latest antisemitic attack in the Paris region is perhaps the most disturbing to date. On Friday morning, six young men attacked woman and her 13-month old baby on a crowded suburban train.

The woman, aged 23, was at first pushed around by the men. When they found papers in her bag which suggested to them she was Jewish, they pulled knives and began to slice her clothing. The attackers then cut her hair and drew swastikas on her stomach. The attackers then stole the woman's cash and bank cards before kicking over her pram - where her baby was sleeping - and left the train at the notorious Garges-Sarcelles RER station north of Paris. No other passengers assisted the victim.

The attack has caused widespread outrage in France across the political spectrum: Jewish groups have called for tougher action from the government to combat rising anti-semitic violence - which is mainly perpetrated by young men of North African origin: Friday's attackers were no exception. The sinister parallels between the young woman's attackers deducing her religion from her ID papers were not lost on Jean-Paul Huchon, president of the Ile-de-France region, who linked the lack of intervention by fellow passengers with France's complicity in the death camp deportations in the 1940s.

The attack comes as France begins another period of soul searching following intelligence reports that over 300 of its housing estates have become "ghetto-style" breeding grounds for religious extremism. France has failed to integrate the descendents of north African immigrants who came to the country in the 1960s. Now, egged on by fanatical preachers and Arab-language propaganda channels, antisemitism has become common and casual.

In the past six months in France, 95 violent acts of racism against non-Jewish groups have been recorded. For the same period, 135 attacks on Jews have been reported - there are only an estimated 600,000 Jews in France.