PARIS, July 13: A French woman who alleged suffering an anti-Semitic attack that shocked France from President Jacques Chirac down told police on Tuesday she made up the incident, a judicial source said.
The 23-year-old woman and her male companion were detained after police called them in to discuss the alleged attack, in which she said six knife-wielding youths of Arab and African origin had daubed swastikas on her stomach on a Paris train.
"She admitted to inventing the whole thing," the judicial source said. The woman, identified only as Marie L, had alleged the attackers wrongly thought she was a Jew and also toppled a stroller carrying her 13-month-old baby.
When news of Friday's alleged attack emerged, President Chirac and other leading French politicians condemned it. But anti-racism group Mrap criticized officials for being too quick to blame youths of Arab and African origin.
"(Mrap) strongly condemns the irresponsible comments of people who took advantage of this invention to once more use anti-Semitism as a tool against a specific group of people," it said in a statement. French media had cast doubt on the woman's allegation, saying she had filed six unfounded reports of attacks in the past five or six years. -Reuters
