By ELAINE GANLEY

Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — An upsurge in anti-Semitism in France reached a climax this weekend with a torrent of hate speech directed at a distinguished philosopher during a march of yellow vest protesters, adding to questions about the radicalized fringes of the movement hidden within French society and troubling the nation.

Paris judicial authorities opened an investigation Sunday into anti-Semitic remarks hurled at Alain Finkielkraut a day earlier as he accompanied his mother-in-law to her Left Bank home in Paris.

The investigation is being conducted into “public insult based on origin, ethnicity, nationality, race or religion” after a band of men in the protest march raged at Finkielkraut. “Go back to Tel Aviv,” ”Zionist,” and “France is our land” were among the insults captured on video.

The assault came days after the government said anti-Semitic incidents in France soared last year in what Interior Minister Christophe Castaner called a “poison” spreading “like a venom” and “rotting minds.”

The scene with Finkielkraut was a vicious verbal interlude as thousands of protesters made their way through Paris for the 14th consecutive Saturday of demonstrations by the yellow vest movement. The movement, whose marches have been marked by violence and destruction, has become the top domestic challenge for President Emmanuel Macron, who is accused by demonstrators of favoring the haves over have-nots.

Several thousand protesters gathered again Sunday in Paris to mark the three-month anniversary of the movement, which started Nov. 17 with nationwide protests over fuel tax increases. But the sparse turnout reflected a growing disenchantment with the grassroots phenomenon, once heartily supported, but increasingly divided and violent.

Finkielkraut, a member of the prestigious Academie Francaise, said in two TV interviews Sunday that he is worried by the changing nature of the movement that he initially supported.

But he told French television station LCI he doesn’t intend to file a complaint.

“I want one thing: I want to know who they are. … What movement do they belong to?” Finkielkraut said on LCI.

There are suspicions, and clear clues, that some extremist groups have infiltrated the yellow vest movement.

Finkielkraut and others point to ultra-leftists and the ultra-right as likely forces behind violence. He also pointed to a comedian known as Dieudonne and an intellectual, Alain Soral, both convicted in the past of racism. Dieudonne showed up at one yellow vest event.

Finkielkraut singled out one bearded, screaming man in the video.

“He told me, (a) Jewish (man), that ‘France belongs to us,'” Finkielkraut said in an interview with BFMTV. “This phrase is terrible, extraordinarily threatening,” just like “dirty racist” or “dirty Zionist.”

The man also said that “God will punish you,” Finkielkraut said.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner tweeted Sunday that the main suspect in the stream of insults had been identified.

BFMTV said the person is a Salafi, a follower of a Muslim strain that makes a literal reading of the Quran holy book. The report could not be immediately confirmed.

For Finkielkraut, whose parents immigrated from Poland in the 1930s and whose father was sent from France to Auschwitz for three years, anti-Semitism in France has changed its language.

Injuries like “dirty Jew” have been replaced by “dirty racist,” he said, adding that this is more worrisome than fascism, which “you can mobilize against.”

“Don’t mix up the eras and think we are reliving the 1930s” with a rise of Hitler, he insisted on LCI, noting he has been attacked at two other events since 2014, once spat upon.

Today “they tell you that the Jews are doing exactly the same thing in Palestine … They will condemn the Jews today because it’s the Holocaust that Palestinians are enduring,” he said.

Last week, the government reported a huge jump in incidents of anti-Semitism last year: 541 registered incidents, compared to 311 in 2017.

However, one anti-Semitic incident last week appeared to contradict Finkielkraut’s hypothesis that fascist signs are being replaced with a “cleaned-up language.” Swastika graffiti was found Feb. 11 on street portraits of Simon Veil, a Holocaust survivor considered a French national treasure for her life’s work.

In other acts a week ago, the word “Juden” was painted on the window of a bagel restaurant in Paris and two trees planted at a memorial honoring a young Jewish man tortured to death in 2006 were vandalized, one cut down.

Macron was quick to condemn the verbal attacks on Finkielkraut, tweeting they are the “absolute negation of what we are.”

Finkielkraut expressed doubt the Gilets Jaunes protesters were among those shouting at him, although his attackers wore the movement’s adopted garb — the fluorescent yellow safety vests required in all French calls for emergencies.

The movement has broadened from protesting fuel tax hike to include a range of concerns about France’s living standards and the economic stresses facing ordinary families.

Numerous political parties are holding an anti-Semitism rally in Paris on Tuesday. However, Finkielkraut said he didn’t yet know whether he would attend.

battle for the past four years because I want to make sure that other transgender students do not have to go through the same pain and humiliation that I did,” he said.

The Gloucester County School Board’s meeting comes just months before a trial is set to begin over its current bathroom rules.

Grimm said the proposed policy “is far from perfect, but would represent an important first step for Gloucester.” The policy “would also send the message to school districts across (Virginia) and the country that discrimination is unacceptable,” he said.

Grimm has also been expanding his case against the school board. A federal judge ruled Thursday that he can sue over its refusal to change the gender on his high school transcript, which still lists him as female.

Grimm said the unchanged transcript will stigmatize him every time he applies to a college or potential employer that asks for it.

“I shouldn’t have to be outed against my will in every situation where I would have to give that document,” Grimm said during a phone interview from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he moved after graduating in 2017.

A court order legally made Grimm a man. And he is listed as male on his birth certificate, passport and a state-issued identification card in California.

The issue of Grimm’s transcript highlights another concern in the transgender community that, like bathroom policies, remains far from settled across the nation.

Federal law does not directly address the issue. Some states, such as Massachusetts, provide explicit guidance to schools for updating records. Others, such as Virginia, do not provide a clear path forward to schools.

“The issue is certainly rising as more students express their gender identity,” said Francisco M. Negron Jr., chief legal officer for the National School Boards Association.

“We would hope states offer clear guidance,” he added. “The alternative is that students would have to make the case on their own, and school districts would not have the benefit of clarity under state law.”

Paul D. Castillo, an attorney for the LGBT rights group Lambda Legal, said Grimm’s effort to update his transcript is “not an isolated incident.”

“But it might be one of the first challenges based on federal law to update a student’s legal record,” Castillo said.

David Corrigan, the lead attorney for the Gloucester County School Board, declined to comment on the case or on how it could be impacted by a possible policy change. The district is located about an hour east of Richmond.

Grimm’s lawsuit has followed a circuitous path that almost included a stop at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The high court had scheduled arguments for 2017. But they were scrapped after the Trump Administration withdrew recommendations from the Obama-era to allow students to use the bathroom of their chosen gender.

As recently as December, Gloucester was still fighting the lawsuit as well as Grimm’s efforts to bring his transcripts into it.

Grimm and the American Civil Liberties Union claim the policy violated his rights under the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause and federal policies that protect against sex discrimination. They make the same argument about Grimm’s transcripts.

The school board had argued that its bathroom policy did not violate Grimm’s rights but protected students’ privacy.

Regarding the transcripts, the board says such records are a matter of state law, which shouldn’t be argued in federal court.

Plus, the board said, Grimm has ignored federal guidance on such matters. The guidance recommends holding a hearing with school officials to discuss changing “misleading” or “inaccurate” information on a record.

If the board refuses to make a change, the guidance says a person can then place a statement with the contested record that lays out his or her point of view.

It’s unclear if a change in the board’s bathroom policy could lead to a change on Grimm’s transcripts.

Since moving to California, Grimm has been studying at a community college and working as an activist and educator.

He’s been able to avoid submitting his transcript to anyone so far. But that will likely change soon. He’s looking for more traditional work and will eventually apply to four-year schools.

“I’m still tethered to 2017 by this document,” he said. “It’s unfair that a high school that put me through so much is able to wield that much negative influence over my adult life.”