French police probe anti-Semitic motive in killing of Holocaust survivor

French leaders and activists called for people to take to the streets to protest racism after prosecutors filed preliminary charges of murder with anti-Semitic motives Tuesday in the death of an elderly Jewish woman.

Mireille Knoll, 85, was killed Friday in her apartment, which was then set on fire, according to a French judicial official. Francis Kalifat, president of the Jewish group CRIF, said Knoll was stabbed 11 times.

The suspects were interrogated by police before being sent before a judge, who initiated a formal investigation into murder motivated by the real or supposed adherence to a religion, as well as aggravated theft and damage to property, the source said.

Under French law, being placed under formal investigation often, though not always, leads to people being sent to trial.

Knoll reportedly escaped a notorious Second World War roundup of Paris Jews in which police herded some 13,000 people — including more than 4,000 children — into a stadium and shipped them to the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi German-occupied Poland. Fewer than 100 survived.

Then aged nine, Knoll fled with her mother to Portugal, returning to France only after the end of the war.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called on "all Parisians" to join a silent march Wednesday in memory of Knoll. Politicians across the political spectrum pledged to attend.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that Knoll's death was a "horrific crime," and reaffirmed his "absolute determination to fight against anti-Semitism."

The CRIF compared the killing to that of Sarah Halimi, 65, who was beaten and thrown from her balcony last April. That murder was reclassified as anti-Semitic last month. The suspect, who came to France from Mali, is in a psychiatric hospital.

France's government presented a plan this month to fight racism and anti-Semitism, focusing on social media and prevention in schools. It also wants to change French law to force internet platforms to detect and remove illegal content.

An annual national count of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and anti-Christian acts — most of which involve threats — dipped in 2017 compared with the year before. But anti-Semitic violence increased by 26 per cent, and criminal damage to Jewish places of worship and burial by 22 per cent.