{"id":367579,"date":"2025-08-23T15:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T15:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/367579\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T15:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T15:50:14","slug":"israeli-children-refused-entry-to-zip-line-park-in-southern-france-manager-detained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/367579\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli children refused entry to zip line park in southern France; manager detained"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination after a group of Israeli children was refused access to the facility, a French prosecutor\u2019s office said in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n

The Israeli children, aged 8 to 16, were on holiday in Spain and had made a reservation for Thursday to use the zip line facility in Port\u00e9-Puymorens, near the Spanish border in the Pyrenean mountains, the Perpignan prosecutor\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor\u2019s office said the manager initially told some people he was refusing the group access on the grounds of \u201cpersonal beliefs\u201d before offering other justifications to others.<\/p>\n

A message posted Wednesday evening on the park\u2019s social media said the site would be closed Thursday due to a storm, \u201cin order to carry out a complete inspection of the facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The park told the group they could not visit. They went to another leisure facility in France with no incident, the statement said.<\/p>\n

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The manager denied any wrongdoing, it added.<\/p>\n

\u201cA line was crossed. We are appalled,\u201d said Perla Danan, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started with graffiti, insults and physical attacks and now it\u2019s literally a ban on children aged 8 to 16,\u201d Danan said, adding that it reminded her of the \u201cno Jews or dogs allowed\u201d sign during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrance\u2019s values have been violated,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jean-Philippe Aug\u00e9, the mayor of Port\u00e9-Puymorens, which has around 100 inhabitants, said \u201cthe DNA of our community is based on a sense of sharing and fraternity,\u201d adding that the incident had caused \u201cutter astonishment\u201d in the village.<\/p>\n

Aug\u00e9 said the zip line course is operated by a private company.<\/p>\n

The Jewish Observatory of France also expressed \u201cdeep outrage\u201d in a statement Friday. It said \u201csuch an act of discrimination, targeting minors exclusively on the basis of their nationality and origin, is extremely serious and undermines the fundamental principles of the Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDiscrimination based on religion\u201d is an offense punishable by up to three years in prison in France.<\/p>\n

Antisemitism has surged in France, with a sharp increase in incidents reported in 2023 after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. These include physical assaults, threats, vandalism, and harassment, prompting alarm among Jewish communities and leaders.<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tAlready a member? Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-367579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115078877949860346","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}