France
(Updated January 2015)
Jews in France (total population: 60 million) – the biggest such community in
Western Europe (600,000-700,000, half of them living in the Paris area)
– are generally well respected, socially assimilated and well represented
in politics.
Anti-Semitic prejudices in France were already virulent during the
Six Day War and the Anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s and 1980s. With
the successes achieved by the extreme right-wing Front National and
an increasing denial of the Holocaust in the 1990s such stereotypes
once again received strong acceptance. At the same time, in the mid-1990s
began the critical engagement with National Socialism, collaboration
and the responsibility of the Vichy Regime.
As the second Intifada began, the number of anti-Semitic criminal offences
rose drastically; out of 216 racist acts recorded in 2000 146 were motivated
by anti-Semitism. The peak was reached during the Jewish High Holidays
in October 2000; one third of the anti-Semitic attacks committed worldwide
took place in France (between 1 September 2000 and 31 January 2002 405
anti-Semitic incidents were documented). The perpetrators were only
seldom from the extreme right milieu, coming instead mainly from non-organised
Maghrebian and North African youths. After interrogating 42 suspects,
the police concluded that these are “predominantly delinquents
without ideology, motivated by a diffuse hostility to Israel, exacerbated
by the media representation of the Middle East conflict (…) a conflict
which, they see, reproduces the picture of exclusion and failure of
which they feel victims in France”. Beginning in January 2002,
but mainly from the end of March till the middle of April 2002 , there
was a wave of anti-Semitic attacks. In the first half of April attacks
against Jews and Jewish institutions in Paris and surrounding areas
were daily occurrences. This was a repeat of the situation of October
2000. In reaction to the anti-Semitic mood the number of the French
Jews who immigrated to Israel in 2002 doubled to 2,566, the highest
number since 1972.
In addition, there was an almost polemical debate on the nature as
well as the denunciation of anti-Semitism linked to the situation in
the Middle East and to Islam, a debate, which led to divisions between
prominent participants and anti-racist groups. Anti-Semitism and security
questions specific to the Jewish community were almost absent from public
debate during this period. In fact, the main ideological themes in the
public debate at a time of both Presidential (12 April and 5 May 2002)
and national (9 and 16 June 2002) elections were law and order and the
unexpectedly strong support for the Front National and its leader Jean-Marie
Le Pen, who played on anti-Semitic resentments. Viewed from a later
perspective, there is an obvious connection with anti-Semitism. During
that same period there was a renewed outbreak of anti-Muslim acts and
speech attributed to the far right.
1. Physical acts of violence
Indications are that there was a significant decrease in May and June
2002 in observed acts in relation to the period from 29 March to 17
April 2002, a period in which police sources recorded 395 events, ranging
from graffiti to assaults. Sixty-three percent of these events involved
anti-Semitic graffiti, while 16 cases of assault and 14 of arson or
attempted arson against synagogues were reported to the police. These
acts principally took place in large urban areas (Ile-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte
d’Azur and Alsace). Many of the violent incidents occurred around
the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the end of March in Lyon, Strasbourg,
Marseille and Toulouse. While the hypothesis of a détente needs
to be confirmed by time, it is true that hostility displayed towards
Jews was still observed, in particular by new Jewish victim support
groups. The people in charge of the help lines « SOS Vérité
et Sécurité » or « SOS antisémitisme
» estimated an average of 8 to 12 reports of this kind every day.
On 10 May eight Arabs who studied with him in the same school attacked
a 16-year-old Jewish youth in Bordeaux. The attack was accompanied by
curses and threats. On 12 May 2002 in Saint-Maur des Fossés (a
Paris suburb), three young Jews who were playing football stated that
they were insulted and attacked by about fifteen young people “of
North African origin”. They lodged a complaint against them for
assault and racist remarks.
2. Verbal aggression/hate speech
Indirect threats
On 18 May 2002 at a demonstration organised in the XIXth district of
Paris by the Parti des Musulmans de France against the “Naqba”,
hostile slogans towards Jews were shouted without any attempt from the
organisers to intervene.
On 26 May 2002 during a demonstration organised in Paris against George
W. Bush’s trip to France by groups such as the French Communist
Party, the Green party “Les Verts”, the Revolutionary Communist
League (“Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire”, LCR) and
others such as the MRAP (“Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié
entre les peuples” - Movement against racism and for friendship
between peoples) and the Human Rights League, about thirty teenagers
chanted anti-Jewish and pro-Bin Laden slogans. The organisers expelled
them. Ethnic minority activists were then forced to intervene to prevent
some youths from attacking a young couple on a scooter in the belief
that they were Jewish.
The anti-Semitic atmosphere also found expression in verbal attacks
at schools and universities.
Graffiti
On 21 May 2002 the police questioned an 18-year-old female student who
was suspected of drawing anti-Semitic slogans and symbols on a kosher
butcher’s shop front in Pré Saint-Gervais (Seine-Saint-Denis,
Paris suburb).
In June 2002 advertising posters in various metro stations as well as
election posters were defaced by graffiti showing the Star of David
and the swastika connected by an “=” sign. It should be noted
that many Front National and RPF (Rassemblement pour la France) election
posters were also defaced by graffiti with such terms as “racist”
or “Fascist”.
Media
In the edition of the daily Le Figaro from 7 June 2002, Oriana Fallaci
, who is the Italian author of a polemical book entitled “La rage
et l'orgueil” (Rage and Pride), wrote a similarly polemical article
entitled “Sur l'antisémitisme” (“On anti-Semitism”).
On 10 June 2002 the MRAP (Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié
entre les peuples) lodged a complaint against Oriana Fallaci’s
book, calling it “a despicable work where slander, vulgarity and
confusion intermingle with contempt. This book is an ‘asserted
call’ to racist hatred and violence against all Muslims.”
The request for it to be banned proved unsuccessful.
Internet
On 7 June 2002, the publication on the website Indymedia-France of a
text in which the “Israeli concentration camps” were compared
to the Nazi camps in Germany during the Second World War provoked the
resignation of two editorial team members. One of the founding members
of this anti-globalisation site, which was created after the Seattle
summit, demanded the expulsion of the author of the article, “to
prevent Indymedia-France from falling under revisionist influence”.
The incriminated article also pondered whether Israel might be equated
with Nazi Germany. On the other hand, another website contributor stated
that, “in parallel, there is a debate on the website to determine
whether the [Israeli] government is a Nazi government or not.”
3. Research studies
Between 28 January and 1 February 2002, the Sofres Institute surveyed
400 people aged between 15 and 24 living in France. A massive majority
rejected anti-Semitic acts: 87% of the respondents considered that “anti-Semitic
acts against synagogues in France” are “scandalous; the state
must punish the culprits very severely”; 11% of them considered
that “if the Jews did not support Israel as much, these attacks
would not take place”; 88% of the respondents considered that “the
Jews should be allowed to follow their usual customs without risking
to get into a fight”; in contrast, 11% considered that “if
the Jews did not seek to make themselves conspicuous in wearing the
kipah, this kind of fight would not take place”; 99% of respondents
judged that defacing synagogues is “very serious” or “rather
serious” (against 1% of them who consider this is “not very
serious or not serious at all”); 97% of respondents judged that
writing anti-Semitic graffiti is “very serious” or “rather
serious” (against 3%); 91% of respondents judged that joking about
gas chambers is “very serious” or “rather serious”
(against 9%); but 11% allocate “a share of responsibility for these
acts to the Jewish community, because of its support to Israel”.
To the question “do the Jews have too much influence…?”
in France, 77% answered that they “rather disagree” or “do
not agree at all”; specifically in the media, 79% responded that
they “rather disagree” or “do not agree at all”;
and in politics, 80% answered that they “rather disagree”
or “do not agree at all”. These figures are much weaker than
those collected by Sofres during a previous survey, which covered the
whole population, conducted in May 2000 for the Nouveau Mensuel magazine.
Then 45% of the respondents had agreed with the statement that Jews
have “too much influence”.
To the question “regarding people who say that the Holocaust and
the gas chambers did not exist, what is your position?”, 51% estimated
that “these people should not be condemned because everyone is
free to think whatever they want”; against which 48% said “these
people must be condemned because they deny a serious historical fact”.
The figures suggest that the Holocaust is to some extent trivialised,
in so far as “freedom of thought” (and expression) is often
placed above the other issues at stake.
Several observers believe that far-right anti-Semitic violence has
shifted towards anti-Semitism of the suburbs. In this respect, the survey
provided new information on the state of mind of the youth of North
African origin “towards the Jews and anti-Semitism”. As a
matter of fact, they were asked the same questions as above. Thus, 86%
of them judged that “defacing synagogues” is “very serious”
or “rather serious”; 95% of them thought that the Jews have
the “right to follow their usual habits without risking to get
into a fight”; and only 5% of them thought that “if the Jews
did not seek to make themselves conspicuous in wearing the kipah, this
kind of fight would not take place”. In the end, 54% of them underlined
the seriousness of “insulting the Jews, even if it is a joke”.
Compared with the overall group of people between 15 and 24, such answers
tend to show that the youth of North African origin is more tolerant
than the average, an attitude that can undoubtedly be explained by the
fact that anti-Semitic acts or attitudes remind them more or less directly
of how they themselves have suffered from racial or cultural discrimination
as Muslims or children of North African parents.
On the other hand, according to this survey the tendency is reversed
concerning traditional anti-Semitic prejudices. The question relating
to the Jews’ alleged influence shows that “respectively 35%,
38% and 24% of the youth of North African origin (against only 22%,
21% and 18% of the whole group of young people) completely or rather
think that the Jews have too much influence in the economic and political
fields and in the media”. Strangely enough, the poll did not say
anything about their answers to the questions concerning the Holocaust.
According to an exclusive survey carried out on 3 and 4 April 2002
by the CSA poll institute and the weekly Marianne of a 1000 people aged
over 18, 10% of the French dislike the Jews (while 23% of them dislike
North Africans and 24% of them dislike young French people of North
African origin), which is the case with 52% of far-right voters (whether
for Le Pen or Mégret).
The surveys commissioned by the ADL conducted between 16 May and 4
June 2002 and between 9 and 29 September concerning “European Attitudes
towards Jews, Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict” (see
Table: Report on Belgium) established that 17% of respondents agreed
to at least three of the four anti-Semitic statements presented. Forty-two
percent agreed to the statements that “Jews are more loyal to Israel
than to this country” and “Jews have too much power in the
business world”, whereby amongst youths the agreement was far higher
with 61% and 64%, respectively. With regard to the current conflict
in the Middle East, 29% expressed that they sympathised with the Palestinians
and only 10% sympathised with Israel. 37% had no preference for one
side or the other.
4. Good practices for reducing prejudice, violence and aggression
The publishing of documents such as the Sofres public opinion poll entitled
“Youth and the Jewish Image”, as well as the public meetings
organised to accompany them, maintain a feeling of hope with regard
to both the growing tolerance towards the Jews and to their “normalisation”
in French society. The situation also seems to be encouraging concerning
the attitude of children of North African parents towards the Jews,
in a time when the global geopolitical situation remains very shaky.
The educational information campaigns within Muslim groups, such as
on the theme “to burn a synagogue is like burning a mosque”,
have encouraged people to talk again and have improved solidarity between
the different communities in this field. Thus, the gesture of a local
Muslim group in Aubervilliers (northern suburb of Paris) is particularly
symbolic: it lent its school bus to a Jewish school of the same area
as its buses were destroyed during an attack.
Beyond inter-religious dialogue, the spontaneous or organised mobilisation
of civil society against the far right has reaffirmed the Republic’s
common values. Such reactions have at least reminded us that the fight
against racism, xenophobia and discrimination remains a common struggle.
The fact that anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish acts in France are presently
being committed mainly by youngsters from North African immigration,
apparently acting in an isolated manner, brought many observers to the
conclusion that a far right anti-Semitism has been superseded by a form
of anti-Semitism rooted in urban decay and social deprivation. The French
term for this combination of urban decay and social deprivation is “banlieue”,
literally “suburb”, which functions in roughly the same way
as “inner city” in English. Beyond the local character of
this observation, some, like the philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff
– during his highly publicised book launch in spring 2002 –,
spoke of a “new planetary judeophobia” ("nouvelle judéophobie
planétaire”) that explains “all world problems by the
existence of Israel”. This “new judeophobia”, which he
sees as initially brought about by radical Islamic activists, by the
heirs of “third-worldism” and by far-left anti-globalisation
activists, accuse the Jews of being themselves racist. Thus, according
to Taguieff, there seems to be an “anti-Jewish anti-racism”.
In this way, it can appear that “the fight against racism and the
fight against anti-Semitism have been dissociated from one another”,
as Shmuel Trigano wrote in the weekly newspaper Actualité Juive
(25 April 2002), adding that “suburb anti-Semitism has indeed broken
the “united front” strategy, revealing that the victims of
racism (Arab Muslims) could be anti-Semites”. This point of view,
which is shared by some Jewish personalities and groups, can extend
to an exclusively Jewish conception of the fight against anti-Semitism
and a tendency to link it to support for Israel and its current government.
5. Reactions by politicians and other opinion leaders
The current political climate, which has been dominated by the growth
of the far right and the renewed Republican mobilisation since 21 April
2002, eclipsed anti-Semitism and tensions between Jews and Muslims in
France and removed them from the political agenda. It resulted in the
abandonment of the large demonstration against racism and anti-Semitism,
for peace in the Middle East and for the union of all communities, planned
for Sunday, 12 May 2002, to run parallel to the “Peace Now”
demonstration in Israel. Many trade unions, politicians of both left
and right organisations and numerous personalities had organised this
demonstration.
Representatives from Jewish organisations criticised the French Government
for being inactive. President Chirac, who was re-elected on 5 May 2002,
reacted officially to the accusations that he had denied the gravity
of the threats against Jews coming mainly from abroad, in particular
from Israel and the United States, on several occasions. He stated that
he “has protested against the ‘anti-French campaign’,
which took place in Israel and which aimed at presenting France as an
anti-Semitic country”. “France is not an anti-Semitic country”,
he repeated the day before the 55th Cannes Film Festival, in response
to the American Jewish Congress, which had sought to dissuade Jewish
celebrities from participating in the film festival. During his discussions
with President George W. Bush, who was in France on 26 and 27 May 2002,
President Chirac “protested strongly” against the idea conveyed
in the United States that France is seized by a kind of anti-Semitic
fever.
On 19 April the French Interior Minister Daniel Viallant, together
with his colleagues from Belgium, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom,
issued a joint declaration on “Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism”
that appealed for an undertaking of preventive measures and a European-wide
coordination of the responsible agencies and offices.
On 29 May 2002, Nicolas Sarkozy, the new Interior Minister, went to
the synagogue of Clichy-sous-Bois, which was attacked with a petrol
bomb on 10 August 2000, and launched the slogan “zero tolerance
for anti-Semitism”. On 2 June 2002, he welcomed representatives
from the Jewish community at the Ministry of the Interior. The Minister
promised to improve the coordination of the suitable preventive or educational
safety measures and to follow up regularly the files indexing complaints,
particularly those submitted by “SOS Vérité et Sécurité”.
The participants agreed that similar meetings would take place periodically
in Ile de France and in the provinces. Moreover, the Minister is said
to have committed himself to work in partnership with the Ministries
of Justice and of Education.
On 21 July 2002 French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin declared
at a meeting held on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the roundup
of French Jews for deportation: “to harm the Jewish community is
to harm France, harm the values of our republic.” A new government’s
hard line on crime and North African juvenile gangs in the second half
of 2002 led to a remarkable decrease of anti-Semitic incidents. Besides
the conspicuous presence of police protecting Jewish institutions the
initiatives of the new Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy promoting
an active dialogue with different sections of the Muslim community changed
the situation in a positive way.
2014 Incidents
During 2014 there were multiple incidents of Anti-Semitism and hate speech directed against Jewish individuals living in France. This hostile environment contributed to the more than doubling of the numbers of French immigrants to Israel in 2014, with over 7,000 French individuals making Aliyah. A timeline of the Anti-Semitic events
that occured in France during 2014 can be found below.
January 26: Multiple anti-government protestors
were filmed chanting “Juif, la France n’est pas a toi” -translated to “Jew, France is not yours” at a populated rally in Paris.
March 2: A Jewish man was savegely beaten on the Paris Metro by attackers who
made it clear that they were attacking the man because he was Jewish. The attackers said "Jew, we are going to lay into you. You have no country."
March 10: A 52 year old Jewish man was assaulted by two individuals weilding a stun-gun outside of a Synagogue in Central Paris. The Jewish man was shot with the stun-gun and sustained minor injuries, and was released from the hospital soon after he arrived.
March 20: A Jewish teacher was
violently attacked while leaving a popular Kosher restaurant in Paris. The attackers broke the teacher's nose and drew a swastika on his chest.
April 3: A Moroccan man is fined over $4,000 for posting pictures online of himself giving the Nazi salute in front of the Grand Synagogue in Bordeaux.
May 15: In a viscious and senseless act, a Jewish woman and her baby were attacked at a bus station in Paris by a man who shook the baby carriage violently with the baby inside and
shouted "Dirty Jewess, enough with your children already."
June 9: As they were walking to their Synagogue
in Paris's Romainville suburb on Shavuot, two Jewish teens and their grandfather were chased for a significant amount of time by four men wielding axes.
June 10: A young Jewish man wearing a Yarmulke and tzitzit
was attacked with a taser in Paris by a group of his peers. In the town of Sarcelles, two young Jewish men were sprayed with tear gas.
June 24: A French court dropped their lawsuit against French commedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, ruling that they do not believe that the comedian's video mocking the Holocaust constitutes hate speech.
July 10: A young Jewish girl was pepper-sprayed by an unprovoked assailant in Paris.
July 14: French celebrations of Bastille Day got out of hand as anti-Israel rioters attacked the Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue. The congregants gathered inside of the Synagogue fought back.
August 14: A request was made by the Simon Wiesenthal Center
asking a small town in Paris to change it's name from "La-Mort-aux Juifs" or "Death to the Jews" to something more appropriate.
September 2: French authorities thwarted a plot by two French teenage girls to blow up a synagogue in Lyon. These authorities confirmed that the young girls were part of a "network of young Islamists who were being monitored by security services."
November 12: A kosher restaurant was firebombed and suffered extensive damage, and a Jewish student wearing a yarmulke was assaulted outside of his high school.
December 2:
France historically votes to recognize Palestine as a state, a move criticized by politicians and officials from all over the world.
Charlie Hebdo
At 11:30a.m. local time on January 7 2015 two gunmen dressed in black and armed with Kalishnakov assault rifles approached the headquarters of satirical French newspaper
Charlie Hebdo located in Rue Nicolas-Alpert. The two gunmen, later identified as Cherif and Said Kouachi, made their way into the building shooting maintenence staff and caretakers as they went. After forcing a terrified Charlie Hebdo writer to unlock the door to the second floor meeting room where an editorial meeting was currently underway, they entered the room and called out many of their victims by name before they began shooting wildly. The gunmen killed ten people in the meeting including all of their intended targets before fleeing the building shouting "We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad" and "Allahu Akbar."
As the gunmen were in the process of fleeing the scene of the massacre, police arrived outside of the Charlie Hebdo offices.
A gun battle ensued between the gunmen and police officers, and eventually the gunmen escaped after killing Muslim Police Officer Ahmed Merabet. The getaway car was found abandoned near the Charlie Hebdo offices, and after carjacking another vehicle the perpetrators were able to evade the French police forces. On the day following the attacks French authorities caught a break in their case when the suspects robbed a gas station in the Aisne region. The brothers were able to stay one step ahead of the French police and took refuge in the Creation Tendance Decouverte print warehouse in Dammartin-en-Goele. Hundreds of French police officers surrounded the building, igniting an 8 hour standoff. Just before 5:00p.m. local time explosions and gunfire could be heard coming from inside of the print warehouse and Cherif and Said Kouachi emerged from the building opening fire. They were promptly killed by the French police.
During the search for the Charlie Hebdo suspects, a lone individual shot dead a policewoman and injured a man in a Paris suburb. Initially it was dismissed that the two attacks were related, but upon further investigation it seemed as if they were planned in conjunction. The lone gunman escaped the scene of the attack after a shootout with police and re-emerged a few hours later at a Kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, Paris. The gunman was then identified as Amedy Coulibaly, and he demanded that they Kouachi brothers be allowed to leave the Creation Tendance Decouverte print warehouse where they were hiding from police unharmed. Shortly after the raid on Creation Tendance Decouverte print warehouse that killed the Kouachi brothers, French special forces moved in on Coulibaly who had taken multiple people hostage in the Kosher supermarket. Coulibaly had just begun to recite his evening prayers to Mecca when the supermarket was stormed by French special forces who immediately shot him dead and released the remaining 15 hostages. The French authorities recovered 4 dead bodies from the store, all of them Jewish individuals. The Jews killed while being taken hostage at the store will be buried in Israel. A video of Amedy Coulibaly was released posthumously in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS). It is believed that this video was filmed sometime between when the Charlie Hebdo shootings began and when Coulibaly took the people hostage at the Kosher supermarket.
Following these attacks, Israeli leaders announced that they would welcome into Israel any French Jew who feels threatened
or unsafe due to the current social climate in France. Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined leaders from all over the world in Paris on January 11 during a march to commemorate the lives lost to the senseless attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Kosher supermarket in Paris. The Prime Minister stated "I wish to tell to all French and European Jews — Israel is your home." Israeli Orthodox newspaper HaMevaser published a photograph of world leaders at the march, but in a controversial move photoshopped out the women in the photograph, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This was met with ridicule from news organizations and social media around the world.
French Politicians expressed their support for Jewish individuals: French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on January 11 2015 that "If 100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure." France has both the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe, and French immigration to Israel has drastically increased since the mid-2000's.
The community of Netanya in Israel is full of French ex-patriots who have made Aliyah to Israel, and in early 2015 they began to prepare for a large influx of immigrants. The French-Israeli owner of a bakery in Netanya told the New York Times "We are waiting for them. This is our country. We have no other place." Netanya offers the new immigrants the comforts of French Synagogues, dentists that speak French, and French style restaurants.
Sources:
C.R.I.F. - Released by the European Jewish Congress, Tablet Magazine (January 9 2015), The Washington Post (January 11, 2015), The New York Times (January 15, 2015) |