France's Chief Rabbi has hailed a stiff sentence handed down last month to a man convicted of setting fire to a kosher supermarket, during the height of last summer's wave of violent anti-Semitism in the country.
The attacker, identified as 27-year-old "Abbas C." by French media, was handed a four-year sentence by the Correctional Tribunal of Pontoise on October 26. He was convicted of setting fire to the Naouri supermarket during anti-Semitic riots in the Paris suburb of Sarcelle on July 20.
Astonishingly, the perpetrator worked as an ambulance driver.
"This sentence reflects the determination of the judiciary to fight anti-Semitic crimes," Rabbi Haim Korsia, told the JTA on Tuesday.
Prosecutors had actually asked for a more lenient sentence of 26 months, and Rabbi Korsia said the decision to level such a stern sentence "sent an important message" that French authorities would take similar incidents of violent anti-Semitism equally as seriously.
Abbas C. was convicted of arson in relation to the attack on the store, as well as assaulting police officers with rocks and for stealing a TV set from another shop attacked by rioters.
The riots themselves took place on the back of an upsurge in European anti-Semitism, with Islamist and far-left groups often targeted Jews and Jewish institutions - including synagogues and schools - in response to Israel's 50-day counterterrorism operation in Gaza.
France saw some of the worse anti-Semitic violence, including an attempt by Muslim protesters to attack a synagogue filled with worshipers.
The particular riot in which Abbas C. committed the arson attack was held in response to French authorities' decision to temporarily ban protests over Operation Protective Edge, after demonstrations by anti-Israel groups repeatedly turned violent.
But hard-left and Muslim demonstrators defined the ban and took to the streets anyway, attacking police and Jewish targets.