A court in France has sentenced a nanny to prison for deliberately poisoning the food of the Jewish family that employed her, though it controversially cleared her of acting out of racist hatred. The ruling has sparked significant criticism from Jewish legal representatives in the country.
The Crime and The Sentence
The 42-year-old woman, identified in French media as Leila Y., received a three-year prison sentence, with six months suspended, for her actions in January 2024. She was convicted of intentionally contaminating the food of the Paris-based family, including that of the three children aged two to seven who were in her care.
Prosecutors had sought a harsher penalty by charging her with causing deliberate harm by poisoning with the aggravating circumstance of racist hatred. However, the Correctional Tribunal of Nanterre dismissed this element, which could have potentially doubled her prison term.
Antisemitic Statements Ignored by Court
According to the family's lawyer, Patrick Klugman, the nanny made explicitly antisemitic remarks to police upon her arrest in February 2024. She stated she was motivated "because they have money and power. I should’ve never worked for a Jew; she gave me only problems."
Despite this admission, the judge ruled that the statements came weeks after the poisoning incidents and therefore did not conclusively prove the crimes were motivated by hate. Klugman strongly protested this decision, asserting in a statement: "In this affair, there is one constant: Antisemitism."
Another lawyer for the family, Sacha Ghozlan, told Radio J that while the sentence was relatively severe for the crime, the failure to recognize the antisemitic motive was "incomprehensible." He cited a witness—an employee at the children's Jewish school—who reported hearing the nanny use antisemitic rhetoric while dropping the kids off.
Details of the Poisoning and Aftermath
The nanny, who had worked for the family under a false Belgian identity for two months, was ordered to leave France following her conviction, a standard procedure for those found to have overstayed their visa.
The incident came to light when the mother noticed abnormalities in household products, including wine, juice, bread, and a makeup kit that caused skin irritation. The crucial tip-off came from her five-year-old daughter, who told her she saw the nanny pour a soap-like liquid into a wine bottle.
Confronted by the mother, the nanny's employment ended. Police later analyzed the tampered products and confirmed they contained non-lethal poisonous substances. The woman was arrested several weeks after she stopped working for the family.
The family's legal team has announced they will seek to have the antisemitic motive formally recognized through a separate civil lawsuit against the convicted nanny.
Prominent French-Jewish lawyer Gilles-William Goldnadel commented on the case, linking the atmosphere of hate to political rhetoric. He stated on Radio J that hate had been "worked up to a fever pitch" by certain political movements, and this case was a tragic result of that infusion.
