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Paris venue where 89 people killed previously targeted over Jewish ownership
The Bataclan concert hall—site of the deadliest of Friday’s six coordinated Islamist terror attacks in Paris, with 89 people killed—was under Jewish ownership for four decades and had received frequent threats in the past for that reason.
Sold only two months ago by co-owners Pascal Laloux and Joel Tuitto, the venue is still under their responsibility.
“One of the managers called me and began to tell me about the disaster that was taking place,” Tuitto, who recently moved to Israel, told Israel’s Channel 2. “I could hear the gunshots and the voices in the background….The terrorists were inside the theater, and I heard the gunshots, but I couldn’t do anything.”
Tuitto said he had co-owned the Bataclan since the 1970s, and that according to the terms of the sale, he remains responsible for it until September 2018.
The French magazine Le Point reported that in 2011, a terrorist told French security services that “we (the Army of Islam terrorist group) had planned an attack against the Bataclan because its owners are Jews.”
The Bataclan, which regularly hosted Jewish and Israeli events, also received serious threats in 2007 and 2008. Tuitto said a group of masked Palestinians had even come to the venue two years ago demanding its closure due to its “fundraising for Israel and the IDF,” and warning of an attack if their demand was not met, but nothing came of the threat.
The band playing at the Bataclan the night of the brutal attack, Eagles of Death Metal, played a concert in Tel Aviv this past summer.
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