By Joelle Diderich
Paris - French neo-Nazis formed an alliance with extremist Jewish groups on the Internet to publish a torrent of hate messages directed against Arabs and Muslims, according to a report by a leading anti-racist group.
Members of extreme-right groups were prepared to set aside their anti-Semitic feelings to share Web space and know-how with extremist pro-Israeli campaigners, amid a rise in violence in the Middle East, the study found.
"This is a new phenomenon," Mouloud Aounit, head of the MRAP group which published the 170-page report, said on Thursday.
Groups shared advice on how to send messages without leaving electronic trails "We wanted to ring an alarm bell over the worrying development of this form of racism which is not only virtual, but has also spread to everyday life," he said.
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The report said 26 websites, traced to far-right and Jewish extremist groups in France, operated from the same server in the United States between 1999 and March this year.
Members of the groups also shared advice on how to send messages without leaving electronic trails.
Investigators believed the sites were taken down because of disagreement between the groups over the US-led invasion of Iraq, with Jewish extremists supporting the action but some French far-rightists against it.
French police had no immediate comment to the report.
'They are isolated individuals who represent nobody but themselves' Haim Musicant, director of France's main Jewish organisation, CRIF, condemned all extremist Internet sites and called for a strengthening of laws to fight racism on the Web.
He said he did not know who was behind the sites, but noted there were extremists among both Jews and Muslims.
"This could be the work of provocateurs whose aim is to stoke tensions in France," Musicant said. "If they are Jews, I have no idea, they are isolated individuals who represent nobody but themselves."
Aounit said the unlikely alliance could resurface soon.
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