A 23-year-old cell-phone salesman, Ilan Halimi, was kidnapped and tortured for three weeks by a gang of African and North African immigrants called the Barbarians while his captors unsuccessfully sought to get a ransom from Halimi’s family.

"We are shocked that in the 21st century, this horrific torture and murder of a Jew because he is a Jew could take place in a Western democracy,” Chairman Jack Rosen said.

“We congratulate the French government for their serious response to this crime, a crime which underscores the relationship of Jew-hatred to the general assault on Western values.”

Claude Barouch, President of the Council’s French Jewish partner organization, UPJF, said that an atmosphere of Israel demonization in the media, irresponsible and unjust criticisms spread by public persons, the laxness of the justice system toward perpetrators of hate crimes, and a lack of reactions by political leaders combined to create a climate that led some to believe they can do what they want to Jews without facing any serious consequences.

UPJF leaders including Mr. Barouch, Herve Giaoui and Stephane Friedfeld met with Claude Guéant, who heads the cabinet of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy last week; Mr. Barouch met with Mr. Sarkozy on Tuesday.

UPJF is organizing a demonstration this coming Sunday, February 26, in Paris, in solidarity with the family of Ilan Halimi.

French officials ultimately concluded that hatred of Jews was a major element in the crime. Initially, the Paris public prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, told Parisian Jewish radio last Thursday that “no element of the current investigation could link this murder to an anti-Semitic declaration or action.”

But according Interior Minister Sarkozy, police changed their minds after police had finding literature linking suspects to Muslim causes and discovering that four of six other people the gang tried to kidnap were Jewish.

Mr. Sarkozy told the National Assembly that, while the Barbarian gang was after money, “they were convinced that ‘the Jews have money.”

Mr. Sarkozy called this “anti-Semitism by conflation,” adding that police had linked suspects to documents supporting extreme Islamic causes.