France and the Jews

An Israeli attack on French anti-Semitism causes uproar in Paris

CHALLENGES to the country's image as a robust, secular democracy, with a distinct republican system that guarantees the equality of all creeds before the law will always touch the French political class in a sensitive place. Especially when religious diversity is already shaking that system to its foundations.

So when Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, urged French Jews to take refuge in Israel from the anti-Semitism that was raging in the land of liberty, equality and fraternity, politicians in Paris took it very personally. “We see the spread of the wildest anti-Semitism” in France, Mr Sharon told American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on July 18th. Nor did he mince words about the cause: nearly 10% of France's population was Muslim - and this was breeding a new kind of anti-Semitism.

Within hours, French officialdom reacted furiously. The foreign ministry described the prime minister's comments as unacceptable; a day later, President Jacques Chirac's office said Mr Sharon would not be welcome in France unless he explained his comments. It was left to Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, to douse the flames a little. He ascribed the incident to “cultural misunderstanding ” - -and noted that one of his country's founding principles was its invitation to the Jewish diaspora to migrate to Israel. An increasing number of French Jews - albeit a small share of the total - are doing so.

The annoying thing for French politicians was that Mr Sharon's remarks coincided with a historically resonant public ceremony at which top public figures made a frank acknowledgment of the evils of anti-Semitism under the wartime Vichy regime. What the ceremony commemorated was the Velodrome d'Hiver round-up in July 1942, when 8,000 French Jews were arrested over two days, and detained at a sports stadium in Paris. Almost all of them were deported to concentration camps via a transit camp in Drancy. Only in 1995 did France officially accept that its own nationals had carried out the round-up. This year, six government ministers, including Michel Barnier, the foreign minister, took part in the memorial ceremony, and they used it to make solemn warnings about the resurgence of anti-Semitic activity - of which there is plenty of objective evidence. According to the interior ministry, there have been 510 anti-Semitic threats or attacks in the first six months of 2004, against 593 last year.

At the top end of French society, where political orthodoxies tend to be formed, most people would agree that life for Jews is relatively comfortable. Among the most successful members of France's 600,000-strong Jewish community - the largest in Europe - are Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister, Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister and Bernard-Henri Levy, a leading intellectual.

But in the rougher parts of French cities, there is often a direct correlation between events in the Middle East and the level of inter-communal tension. The latest wave of anti-Semitic acts started with the beginning of the second intifada against Israel in autumn 2000. Whereas in the 1990s most incidents were carried out by white supporters of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a xenophobic politician, the perpetrators of the recent attacks have tended to be disaffected young Muslim men.

Though worried about the rise of anti-Semitic incidents, most Jewish organisations in France refuse to endorse Mr Sharon. France is not an anti-Semitic country and it is not France's large population of Muslims that creates anti-Semitism, insists Joséph Zrihen at CRIF, a council representing Jewish organisations in France.

Still, Israeli officials point tartly to the fact that France has the most pro-Arab government in the European Union. Mr Barnier irritated Israel when he declared his “solidarity with the Palestinian people” during a visit to Ramallah on June 29th. After a UN resolution on July 20th called on Israel to stop building a wall in the West Bank, Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador at the UN, accused France of behaving “disgracefully ” - -by lobbying for the resolution's acceptance.

In theory, this sort of diplomatic sparring should have no effect on the social and political climate in France's cities. In practice, tension over the Middle East and the mood in the French street do often march in step, to the detriment of France's ideals of inter-communal tolerance.

An Israeli attack on French anti-Semitism causes uproar in Paris.

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