PARIS (WJC) — A leading anti-racism group in France launched legal action on Monday, Feb, 2, after a job advertisement appeared online, which included the line “If possible, not Jewish” in a list of criteria for its desired candidate.
SOS Racisme lodged a complaint after a job ad for a graphic designer at the Paris company NSL Studio appeared online on the jobs site Graphic Jobs. The ad listed a number of qualifications for desired candidates, including “organized, demanding and motivated.” Criteria also included the specification: “If possible, not Jewish”.
The advert caused immediate outrage and was soon taken down from the site. Graphic Jobs quickly issued a tweet expressing their apologies for what they termed a “scandalous” ad. For their part, NSL Studio said they were a victim of hacking and they “would never have willingly published the advert.”
“Someone outside our business added this line. But it wasn’t us. We accept everyone in our company,” one of the company’s directors told the newspaper Le Parisien. The company claimed the advert appeared on other job sites without the specification.
However, ‘Inrocks‘ magazine claimed to have spoken to another employee who said NSL bosses had made a conscious decision not to recruit a Jewish person, due to the fact they had to be flexible and willing to random work days and hours and didn’t want anyone whose religious convictions restricted them. This claim was dismissed by company bosses.
Nevertheless, the anti-racism group SOS Racisme decided to ask its lawyers to launch legal proceedings. The uproar comes at a sensitive time in France where the number of anti-Semitic acts rose dramatically in recent months and the Jewish community is still reeling from the deadly shooting at a kosher supermarket during three weeks ago.
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Preceding provided by the World Jewish Congress.