Blacks, Arabs and anyone identified as a Muslim, were banned from working on Paris, France’s Gare du Nord train station when the Israeli president arrived there recently, it has emerged.
According to the French train workers union, Suid-Rail, the day before Shimon Peres’s arrival at the central Paris station, France’s state-owned rail company, the SNCF, bowed to Jewish pressure not to let blacks, north African-origin employees or even persons of mixed racial origin, work anywhere near Peres or handle his luggage.
“The employees noticed that anyone who was black or Arab was excluded from the job and when afterwards they demanded an explanation from the site boss they received the reply that it wasn’t because they were black or Arab but that there couldn’t be any Muslims getting close to Shimon Peres,” SudRail representative Monique Dabat said.
Challenged at a meeting with union representatives, SNCF baggage-handling subsidiary, Itirémia, admitted that workers had been picked “according to appearance”, the SudRail statement said.
Itirémia at first blamed local rules, then the Israeli embassy and then France’s Interior Ministry but the union claims that an email proves that the SNCF itself ordered the move.
The union also claims that two other SNCF employees – a “mixed-race” ticket inspector and a driver of north African origin – were ordered to keep away from Peres.
Peres was in Paris to meet President François Hollande during a tour which saw him receive a standing ovation at the European parliament for a speech in which he attacked “terrorist madness” in Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
Racial discrimination is illegal in France—but it seems that an exception can always be made for Jewish racists.
