The Passive French

Yesterday in Paris:

Police said the gang of six set upon the 23-year-old woman on a suburban train north of Paris and grabbed her backpack where they found identity papers that showed an address in the capital's well-to-do 16th district. “There are only Jews in the 16th,” one of the group of attackers is alleged to have said.

The young woman, who was not identified, is not Jewish and no longer lives in the district, police said.

The gang then pushed her and cut her hair “to keep a souvenir,” police said. The attackers opened her shirt, reportedly with a knife, before drawing swastikas on her stomach with a marking pen. The 13-month-old infant fell from its stroller in the melee. Neither the mother nor infant was seriously hurt, police said.

Other passengers watched but did nothing, police reported

Police described the gang as ages 15 to 20 and said some appeared to be of Muslim North African origin.

The attack occurred a day after President Jacques Chirac denounced mounting racial intolerance in France, calling for drastic change “at the risk of indifference and passivity.”

Yeah... everything over there is just fine.