Dr. Richard Prasquier, president of the CRIF (Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France), sits down with Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Prasquier. Photo: Maxine Dovere.

In France, disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against lawyer Alexis Dubruel, who demanded that the judge in a case he was working be removed because of his Jewish last name.

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira pledged “total support” to Judge Albert Levy, and French public prosecutors have promised to come down hard on Dubruel, according to Radio France Internationale.

Dubruel argued that the case, in which a girl’s grandmother demanded the right to visit her granddaughter, created a conflict because the girl’s father’s name is Moïse (Moses) after “the founder of the Jewish religion”, while Lévy “is, according to the Jewish religion, one of the names of descendants of the Levites, members of the Levi tribe”.

In a previous hearing a client of Dubruel’s felt that she had been treated unfairly, implying that the judge was biased in the defendant’s favor because he was Jewish.

On Tuesday the Lyon appeals court in which the request was made fined Dubruel the maximum possible penalty of 750 euros.

Levy is no stranger to anti-Semitic attacks. In the past he was placed under police protection when an Islamist group threatened him, and in the mid-1990s he suffered threats against his life while investigating links between the political party Front National and organized crime in the city of Toulon.