PARIS — A young mother who claimed she was the victim of a cruel anti-Semitic attack that stunned France has confessed she fabricated the story, authorities said yesterday.
The woman had claimed she was robbed on a suburban train Friday by a knife-wielding gang that mistook her for a Jew and scrawled swastikas on her body.
Police could find no clues or witnesses and took the woman in for questioning yesterday.
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There was no immediate explanation of the woman’s motive for making up the story.
Reports of the attack in a suburban Paris train outraged France, drawing fierce condemnation from politicians and Jewish groups.
The woman told police her young attackers were of North African and African origin and that none of some 20 witnesses in the train car came to her rescue. She said the gang robbed her and turned over a stroller holding her infant, causing the baby to tumble to the floor.
Newspapers gave the story front-page prominence Monday with headlines like “The Train of Hate.”
But, by yesterday, front pages turned skeptical. “Questions on an attack,” said Liberation, which reported the woman’s account was full of “gray areas” and “contradictions.”
Surveillance cameras at the station where the gang reportedly left the train showed no young men running from the scene, and none of the purported 20 witnesses had come forward despite repeated calls from officials and promises of anonymity.
Both France-Info radio and the television station LCI reported that the young woman had filed several complaints about violence and aggression in the past that never panned out. Neither provided sources, but LCI said she had filed six such complaints. Justice Minister Dominique Perben urged the public to be patient and wait for investigators to reach a conclusion.
“All the elements are being verified and screened,” he said early yesterday. “It is, therefore, essential to wait for this work to be finished before making up our minds one way or the other.”
In a morning radio interview, government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said that whether the woman’s account proved true or not had little bearing on France’s need to stem hate crimes.
The Interior Ministry released figures last week showing that hate crimes had spiked in the first half of the year. There were 510 anti-Jewish acts or threats in the first six months of 2004 — nearly as many as in all of last year, 593.
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