TABLET MAG
France Needs Jews in Order to Remain Itself
Emmanuel Macron
February 17, 2026

…Ilan Halimi had his whole life ahead of him. A loving family—his mother, Ruth, and his sisters. Friends, dreams. Dreams like those you have at 23, and the smile of someone who looks at others as a promise. Ilan Halimi was Jewish. And it is because he was Jewish that, for 20 years now, he has been missing from us all. It is because he was Jewish that he was subjected to an unspeakable ordeal, a 24-day calvary straight out of the darkest ages. Everything about the barbaric horror that unfolded 20 years ago inspires dread: Ilan’s abduction—conceived, premeditated, organized. His confinement in a cellar in Bagneux. The belief that, because he was Jewish, he must have had the means to pay unimaginable ransoms. The absurdity of antisemitic prejudice, the machinery of torture, the denial of his humanity. READ MORE

WIKI Murder of Ilan Halimi The murder of Ilan Halimi (Hebrew: אילן חלימי) was the kidnapping, torture, and murder of a young Frenchman of Moroccan Jewish ancestry in France in 2006. Halimi was kidnapped on 21 January 2006 by a group calling themselves the Gang of Barbarians. The kidnappers, believing that all Jews are rich, repeatedly contacted the victim’s modestly placed family demanding very large sums of money. Halimi was held captive and tortured for three weeks, and died of his injuries. The case drew national and international attention as an example of antisemitism in France.

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