01 June , 2006
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has promised to clamp down on a black supremacist group that invaded Paris' Jewish quarter over the weekend, shouting anti-Semitic slogans. But Sarkozy, on a visit to the neighborhood, warned Jews not to take the matter into their own hands with self-defense groups. A band of blacks who call themselves the Ka Tribe invaded the French capital's Jewish quarter and its main thoroughfare, the Rue des Rosiers, on Sunday. According to police, the group made anti-Semitic and intimidating remarks. An investigation was opened. Sarkozy has ordered the group's Internet site closed. Addressing the Jewish community at a local school, Sarkozy said he is looking for ways to break up the Ka Tribe, calling its ideology "sickening, stupid and confused – the only thing that is clear is that it is anti-Semitic."
"I do not want a single Jew here to be afraid," the minister was quoted by AP as saying, adding "The fear of a single Jew is a mark on the French Tricolor." However, he added that the Jewish community must not organize its own security. "Nothing would be worse than provocations of an anti-Semite group that spurs reactions of self-defense," Sarkozy said, referring to groups like Betar, an activist Zionist youth movement, and the Jewish Defense League. The Rue des Rosiers, in the ancient Marais district, is a symbol of the Jewish presence in Paris and the site of a 1982 bombing that killed six people. The Ka Tribe first appeared in December 2004, founded by a man who identifies himself as Kemi Seba. Jews, Arabs and whites are forbidden from taking part in its meetings, according to French media reports.
