one year of anti-Semitic outbreak in France – L’Express

Sometimes the tumult is such that we forget the essentials. The Israeli hostages, the dead in Gaza, the inflexibility of Benyamin Netanyahu, the determination of Hamas leaders, the victims of some against the pain of others… Since October 7, French society has been insulting itself and tearing itself apart with blows of “yes, it’s true but…”, “but are you thinking about…?” Sometimes, we have to go back to the numbers to recall the indisputable facts that the tumult obscures. The unprecedented outbreak of anti-Semitism since October 7 and the Hamas attack is one of them. For the past year, data have demonstrated the scale of a phenomenon fueled by a conflict taking place 3,500 kilometers away, but which spares no corner of France.

The same evening of October 7, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin anticipated a surge in anti-Jewish violence: he knew that the images of the massacres would galvanize some; it reinforces security in front of community places. From the first week, acts are reported. They won’t stop. Between October 7 and December 31, 2023, 1,397 anti-Semitic acts were recorded by the Ministry of the Interior and the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ), which is as many as the total for the previous three years. The start of 2024 continues at a high pace, with 887 incidents recorded in the first half of the year, an increase of 192% compared to 2023. From now on, while Jews make up less than 1% of the population, attacks in anti-Semitic people represent 57% of all racist or anti-religious acts.

During the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000, during the killings perpetrated by Mohammed Merah in 2012 or the attacks of 2015, France experienced sudden increases in anti-Semitism, especially Islamist, but never on this scale. Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (Crif), usually summarizes the recent progression of anti-Semitism as follows: “In the 1990s, we recorded around ten acts per year. Between 2000 and 2022, a few hundred. Now, we number in the thousands. The change in scale is indisputable.”

For a year, no place, no stratum of the population has been spared. There were the most obvious facts, the arson of the Rouen synagogue in mid-May, followed a few months later by the attack on the Grande-Motte synagogue by a man wrapped in a Palestinian flag. In June, there was the anti-Semitic rape of a 13-year-old girl in Courbevoie after a conflict between her and college friends. A dramatic example showing that if the school is still isolated from the upheavals of society, it suffers its aftershocks. There were incidents in higher education, at Sciences Po in particular, where exclusion procedures were launched against certain students.

“Defending the Palestinian cause” as an excuse

There are also more diffuse facts, which are no less illegal. Social networks have given free rein over the last twelve months to the worst of themselves, opening their doors to very young profiles stupidly but often proudly repeating anti-Semitic remarks, but also to more mature authors, who under the guise of “defense of the Palestinian cause”, there are anti-Semitic excesses. The sharp increase in the number of reports to the Pharos platform once again demonstrates a phenomenon on a new scale.

Finally, there are these small gestures to which members of the Jewish community resign themselves. The kippah that we hide under a cap, the use of a nickname to place an order delivered to your home, this nagging question about the first names we have given to our children: don’t we expose them to hatred at work? More than ever, we are getting into the habit of not lingering in front of the synagogue after the service, so as not to make ourselves vulnerable. We rely on the institutions specific to the community, SPCJ, school, etc. in the hope that they will know better than others how to protect against the violence that comes. The approach of the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks, between two important Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashanah from October 2 to 4 and Yom Kippur, on the 11th, is rekindling concerns among the 450,000 French Jews.

The institutions of the Republic do not remain inert. The Ministry of the Interior, despite limited resources, strengthens the protection of community places whenever necessary. The courts have, on numerous occasions, quickly condemned the perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts. Although he did not participate in the major march in mid-November 2023 against anti-Semitism, Emmanuel Macron had, in a letter to the French, displayed his determination. “No tolerance for the intolerable,” he wrote, before calling on his fellow citizens to mobilize against “the unbearable resurgence of unbridled anti-Semitism.”

But while the thousand and one shades of anti-Zionism open the door, on the left, to comments denying Israel’s right to exist, and it is sometimes used to circumvent the law which only punishes anti-Semitism, that scores of the National Rally unleash far-right anti-Jewish speech in regions far removed from the metropolitan suburbs, political leaders are struggling to find the right tone. Not even to mention those who exploit the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the hope of obtaining electoral benefits.

Mobilization is also a victim of political rhythms. The Conference on the fight against anti-Semitism launched last May collapsed with the dissolution of the National Assembly. There are sometimes small renunciations which become big symbols, like this audit on the withdrawal of Jewish children from public schools promised in 2019 by Emmanuel Macron and never carried out.. There are these other priorities which prevail, such as the migration question which slows down, for example, the condemnation of the anti-Semitic remarks of the Comorian president in the summer of 2023. For a long time, Haïm Korsia, the chief rabbi of France, has asked that the fight against anti-Semitism be established as a “great national cause” to mobilize all of society, not just French Jews. So far he has only gotten polite responses.