What do we know about the death of Jérémy Cohen last February in Bobigny?

• On February 17, Jérémy Cohen, a young Jewish man, died after being hit by a tram the day before in Bobigny.

• According to the first elements of the investigation, the young man was trying to escape several individuals who had just attacked him.

  A judicial investigation was opened last week for "intentional violence in a meeting resulting in death without intention to give it".

• After the publication of a video on social networks, the death of Jérémy Cohen, first presented as an accident, is now qualified as an anti-Semitic attack by several Internet users and political figures, such as Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen.

Eric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen or even Yannick Jadot… On social networks and among several political figures, “the Jérémy Cohen affair” is rising.

This young man died after being hit by a tram on February 16 in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), while trying to flee from attackers, according to the first elements of the investigation.

On March 29, a judicial investigation was opened for “intentional violence in a meeting resulting in death without the intention of giving it”, said the Bobigny prosecution, in a press release on Monday.

But why does this affair make the political class react?

takes stock.

What happened ?

The tragedy occurred on Wednesday February 16, around 8 p.m., in Bobigny on tram line 1, which connects Asnières-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine) to Noisy-le-Sec, between the Liberation and La Farm, had specified our colleagues from

in an article published the day after the tragedy.

“The Network Protection and Security Group, the police and the SAMU quickly intervened on the spot,” the RATP had declared to the newspaper.

The victim, "whose vital prognosis was engaged when he was transported to the hospital", died of his injuries the next day, the Bobigny prosecution confirmed to

.

A few minutes before the tragedy, Jérémy Cohen would have been attacked by several individuals.

In a video, broadcast on social networks and presented as being that of the last moments of Jérémy Cohen, we can see a dozen individuals hitting a man.

The latter managed to get out of the crowd, fled between the cars on the road and started to cross the tram tracks.

That's when he was hit by the tram.

The video in question was transmitted by the family to the investigators, after a call for testimony: "We distributed flyers in the mailboxes and we had the decisive testimony of a person who was able to film what happened. past”, explained Raphaël Cohen, the brother of the victim, invited to the microphone of Radio Shalom on March 31.

According to the family of Jérémy Cohen, who believes that the young man “fell into an ambush”, he “received punches, kicks, he was bleeding, he had broken teeth, he was is raised.

At that moment, someone else from the gang arrived and he slaughtered him, he hit him with all his might on his head on the ground.

He got up with a last effort, I don't know what state he was in, he was staggering, and at that moment, the tram hit him, ”said his father, Gérald Cohen, specifying that his son was disabled.

But it was a "disability that was not physically visible," added the victim's brother.

Where is the investigation?

If a first investigation was first opened for "manslaughter", "elements collected" allowed the investigators "to understand that, a few moments before the accident, the victim had suffered violence", explains the prosecution in its communicated on Monday.

Believing that the victim was able to "cross the tram tracks to escape his attackers", the prosecution decided, a few days later, to open a second investigation for "voluntary violence in a meeting".

If the two investigations were first carried out in parallel, the justice system finally decided to "combine the two procedures in a single judicial file" and to open, on March 29, a judicial investigation for "intentional violence in a meeting which led to death without the intention of giving it”.

The investigation, placed under the authority of an examining magistrate, was entrusted to the judicial police of Seine-Saint-Denis.

Why is this case making headlines this Monday?

Since the publication on social networks of the supposed video of the attack on Jérémy Cohen on Monday, his death, first presented as a dramatic accident, has now been qualified as an anti-Semitic attack by several Internet users and political figures, such as Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen.

Who is behind the publication of this sequence?

has not been able to trace back with certainty the first publication of the video.

The family of Jérémy Cohen condemned this publication with our colleagues from the i24news channel.

In any event, these images are quickly making their way onto the Web and attracting the attention of Eric Zemmour and his supporters.

“Why is no media, no politician, no member of the government talking about the death of Jérémy Cohen, beaten up by scum?

“, denounces the presidential candidate on his Twitter account.

"The death of Jérémy Cohen is the appalling symptom of the tragedy that our country is experiencing", also estimated the polemicist in a column published in

.

The supporters of the "Reconquest" candidate, who in turn tweet en masse, are raising the hashtag #JérémyCohen on Twitter to denounce the silence of the media on the attack.

"All light must be shed on the circumstances of the death of Jeremy Cohen, his attack before he was hit by a tram in Bobigny.

It is not up to his family to gather the evidence, ”reacts Yannick Jadot.

“At the end of February, Jérémy Cohen was assassinated”, denounces for his part Marine Le Pen.

“What was presented as an accident could be an anti-Semitic murder.

How to explain the silence on this affair and its motivations?

The case has not finished inviting itself into the presidential campaign.

Society

Antisemitic acts have risen dramatically around the world in 2021

• Bobigny

• Tram

• Investigation

• Anti-Semitism

• Aggression

• parquet

• Ile-de-France