French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at a ceremony commemorating the 20th anniversary of the murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old French Jewish man who was tortured and murdered in 2006, at the Elysée in Paris on February 13, 2026. BERTRAND GUAY / AP
President Emmanuel Macron denounced what he described as an "antisemitic hydra" on Friday, February 13, saying it had crept into "every crack" of society as he commemorated Ilan Halimi, a French Jewish man tortured to death in 2006.
In a crime that horrified France in January 2006, Halimi was kidnapped by a gang of around 20 youths and tortured, in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux. Found three weeks later, the 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
"In 20 years, and despite the resolute efforts of our police officers, gendarmes, judges, teachers and elected officials, the antisemitic hydra has kept advancing," he said. "Constantly assuming new faces, it has insinuated itself into the heart of our societies, into every crevice, too often accompanied by that same pact of cowardice: to keep silent, to refuse to see," he added.
Speaking at his presidential palace, Macron decried what he called "Islamist antisemitism which was behind the pogrom of October 7," referring to the attack against Israel on October 7, 2023 by Palestinian militant group Hamas. The term "pogrom" refers to violent attacks on Jews because of their religion.
