Anti-Semetic Attack in France Hoax

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-07-27 05:04am

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07 ... index.html

Anti-Semitic lie: Woman convicted

PONTOISE, France (AP) -- A young French woman who admitted to lying about being the victim of an anti-Semitic attack has been convicted for fabricating a story that stunned France and given a four-month suspended sentence.

The 22-year-old woman, Marie Leblanc, was also on Monday ordered to receive counseling and put under probation for two years at the trial in Pontoise, north of Paris.

Defense lawyers and her mother have described the woman as psychologically fragile and deeply sorry for her lie, which created an uproar in France as the government is trying to combat a rise in anti-Semitic and other hate crimes.

The woman claimed she was robbed on a suburban Paris train earlier this month by a knife-wielding gang that mistook her for a Jew and scrawled swastikas on her body.

President Jacques Chirac reacted immediately, calling the alleged attack a "shameful act."

But police found no clues or witnesses. After learning the woman had a history of lying and filing complaints about assaults that were never proved, she was detained for questioning.

In a search of her home in the suburb of Aubervilliers, police found the marker she had used to draw swastikas on her body and other evidence. The woman subsequently went on national TV to issue a public apology.

"I offer my apologies to the president ... and people who demonstrated their support for my lie," she said on France-3 television last weekend, with her back to the camera. "I regret this act and I ask for forgiveness to those I deceived and hurt."

Earlier Monday, a prosecutor recommended a slightly tougher penalty: a six-month suspended sentence, a $2,430 fine and counseling.

This reminds me of the girl in Wisconsin who faked her own abduction. God damn attentions whores! Why is it only women do this and not men? Because men don't crave the attention that women do. IMO, the fine is not enough. They need to hit her harder, up it a couple of G's.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-07-27 05:06am

When men crave attention that badly, we usually shoot somebody.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-07-27 05:08am

It would be an interesting thought experiment to subject these people to the penalties that would befall the made-up criminals.

Elfdart · Post by **Elfdart** » 2004-07-27 09:57am

This reminds me of two hoaxes from the late 1980s.

Tawana Brawley claimed she was abducted, gangraped and left in her own feces by white cops in New York. It turns out no such thing happened and the D.A. who was accused of taking part in the crime won a slander suit (which is damn near impossible for public figures in the US) against Brawley's representatives.

Talk show host Morton Downey Jr claimed he was attacked in a men's room by neo-Nazis and that they beat him, shaved his head and drew swastikas on his face. His story unraveled when the detectives noticed that the swastikas were backward and realised that he had drawn them on himself using a mirror in the restroom!

Norman Finkelstein www.normanfinkelstein.com has pretty much debunked the whole notion that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe (check out his lecture "Is Criticism Of Israel Anti-Semitic?"). Pew Research did a series of in-depth public opinion surveys and found out that bigotry against Jews is actually much less than it was a decade ago. That's why hucksters have to make up stories like this demented Frenchwoman's horror tale.

Of course anyone who points that this woman's story was bullshit and that those who tried to exploit it are hucksters is an anti-Semite. *

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-07-27 01:22pm

There was a professor in Claremont, recently, who seems to have faked a hate crime against herself (she hasn't been tried, yet). Allegedly, she popped her tires, smashed her car windows, and spray-painted racial epithets all over the vehicle to get some attention. Anyway, Claremont is home to five colleges and two universities, all of which shut down classes for the day and rushed in speakers and such to address people. Then the professor gets up and makes a speech to over 1,500 students at a rally, saying that the people responsible for this were "terrorists," etc. etc. etc. Frankly, if convicted she shouldn't ever teach again. Not only did she totally betray the trust invested in her by higher education, she also seriously damaged the atmosphere within Claremont.

Faking hate crimes isn't as unusual as it ought to be, either. IIRC, there was another woman a few years ago who faked a hate crime at Duke University, though I'm not as familiar with the details of that case.