An Israeli tourist visiting his brother in Paris has claimed that a taxi driver in the French capital threatened to slit his throat after realising that he was a Jew from Israel during the journey.
Israeli Ronen Edri told his story on a programme from Television production company Keshet earlier this week saying that it had been one of the most terrifying moments of his life, Israeli newspaper Maariv reports.
“I grabbed a taxi going to visit my brother in Paris, asking the driver to take me down to the address,” Edri said and after he asked the driver to turn down the radio in the vehicle the driver said, “Who are you? What do you think you are? You do not live here, you have no rights here, you are not even the owner of this vehicle.”
He said the driver cursed at him in French and said, “I’ll show you what Muslims do to people like you.”
Edri told the taxi driver to stop or he would not pay him the cab fare. Soon afterwards, the taxi driver rang up a friend on his mobile phone.
“He picked up the phone and I heard a phone call in French, I understood that the conversation was about me has decided to record it. I recorded the conversation and sent it to my brother,” Edri said and added that his brother told him the driver said, “this son of a bitch, I’m willing to cut his throat in my car.”
After the taxi arrived at the destination, Edri attempted to get out but the taxi driver sped up as he was only half out of the vehicle and then pulled out a knife. Edri claimed he then jumped out of the car and later discovered he had broken his ankle as a result of the fall.
The incident is only the latest in a growing tide of anti-semitic attacks in Paris. In the heavily migrant populated suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis, a hotbed of Islamic radicalism, many Jews have been forced to move elsewhere due to harassment.
The attacks have not been limited to Jewish men either, with a Jewish schoolgirl being viciously attacked and requiring hospitalization in Paris’ heavily migrant populated 18th arrondissement in October.