French court jails nanny for poisoning parents of Jewish children in her care

A French court on Thursday sentenced a nanny to a two-and-a-half year jail term for poisoning the parents of Jewish children in her care in 2024, but ruled out the aggravating circumstance of antisemitism.

The 42-year-old Algerian woman had been working as a nanny for their three children when the parents filed a complaint in January 2024 after noticing that a bottle of grape juice smelled of bleach and that the mother's eye makeup remover burned her eyes.

She initially admitted in police custody to pouring cleaning products into bottles of alcohol belonging to her employers, telling the officers she "never should have worked for a Jewish woman".

During the trial, the defendant recanted her confession, saying she had "made up" the story under police pressure and denied any antisemitic motive.

In handing down the conviction, the presiding judge at the court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre described her actions as a "major betrayal of trust" for the parents of the then two-, five- and seven-year-old children.

The court however dismissed the aggravating circumstance of antisemitism on procedural grounds, saying her comments came too late after the poisoning and had not been recorded in the presence of a lawyer.

The defendant's lawyer had argued her client had been motivated by a payment dispute.

"The constant comparison between these two lives, this feeling of social oppression, led to this excessive act. It's not hatred, it's suffering," said the defendant's lawyer, Solange Marle.

She was also found guilty of administrative forgery for using a fake Belgian identity card.

In addition to her jail sentence, the former nanny has also been banned from French territory for five years.