Ten years ago, 23-year-old young Parisian Jew, Ilan Halimi, was murdered after being kidnapped and tortured for thre weeks by a gang which tried to extort his family for ransom money.

The gang leader, Youssouf Fofana, assumed that the family was rich because they were Jewish.

"10 years later, we are still experiencing collective remorse," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said at a ceremony in the town of Bagneux, a Paris suburb, where Halimi was detained. “Ten years after the murder we still feel this collective regret of hesitating to call the act by its true name – anti-Semitic hate.’’

The nature of the incident, according to Cazeneuve, prefaced "a series of assassinations": the murders committed by Mohamed Merah in 2012, the shooting attack at the Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014 and another shooting at the kosher Hypercacher supermarket in Paris last year.

Cazeneuve said that the attack was an omen of the "rampant spread" of anti-Semitism and "hatred of the other," as well as the Paris attacks last November.

Bagneux Mayor Marie-Helene Amiable announced that a park in the town will be named after Ilan Halimi, with his mother's agreement.

Joel Mergui, president of the Central Consistory of France, said ‘’unfortunately anti-Semitic barbarism continued after Ilan Halimi. "

France’s Chief rabbi Haim Korsia said that “10en years ago Ilan Halimi was a victim to horror and anti-Semitism; tonight we honor his memory so that the silence that followed that drama, will not repeat itself.’’

The young man was found on a railway track in Essonne on February 13, 2006, naked, gagged, handcuffed and with burns and other signs of torture on his body. He died in the ambulance that was taking him to hospital.

His ordeal began on January 21st, after he was seduced in the cell phone shop where he worked by a young woman who acted as bait.

The head of the gang, Youssouf Fofana, known for his anti-Semitism, contacted the Halimi family and then a rabbi, believing that the Jewish community would pay a ransom if the family didn't.

Fofana, who was arrested in Ivoiry Coast, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the incident. Twenty others, who were involved to varying degrees, were also convicted.

Ilan Halimi is buried in Jerusalem.