Paris (AFP)

The presence of a group of people and a girl with a yellow star during a march against Islamophobia Sunday in Paris has elicited many outraged reactions including personalities of the Jewish community and politicians.

Widely relayed on social networks, a photo shows a group of protesters wearing their coats a yellow star, reminiscent of the one that was to be worn by Jews during the Second World War (although it has only five branches and not six as the star of David). In the center of the star, the word "muslim" and next to it, a yellow crescent.

For the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, this scene is "despicable".

"This photo is to vomit and those who have decked this star have dishonored," tweeted Alain Jakubowicz, former president of the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism (Licra).

"No Muslim in France suffers what our parents suffered during the Second World War and I wish them never to suffer," said Ariel Goldmann, president of the United Jewish Social Fund.

The Crif (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France) in turn said "shocked" Monday by this "infamous amalgam".

He also denounced "the guilty silence" of the political figures present at the march, "demonstration of the collusion between the extreme left and Islamism".

Senator ecologist Esther Benbassa, who was near the people wearing this yellow star, said she did not "notice these insignia". She defended on Twitter any anti-Semitism recalling that, as "Jewish", she had "devoted her life to writing the history of hers".

Many politicians have also reacted to the publication of the photo. For the member of the Macronist party Republic en Marche (LREM) Aurore Bergé, "the comparison is indecent".

"The situation of Muslims in our country is not comparable to that of Jews in the 30s / 40s," she tweeted.

For its part, the imam of the mosque of Bordeaux Tareq Oubrou lamented a "skid".

"People who have worn this yellow star do not know the history of the Jews in France." We can not make comparisons like that, we are not in the 30s, "said Oubrou on France Info. "It is a skid that does not suit this event that denounces the exclusion in this way," said the imam known for his stance in favor of a liberal Islam.

"Basically, the event went well," he said however, regretting that "in all events there are such incidents".

Initiated by several personalities and organizations such as the Collective against Islamophobia in France, the march, which gathered 13,500 people, divided the political class, especially left, and aroused sharp criticism from the French government and the extreme right.

© 2019 AFP