On May 6, 2024, at the initiative of the Minister for Gender Equality and the fight against discrimination, a conference to combat anti-Semitism was organized. On a subject as serious as it is complex to analyze and as difficult to combat, we had to take the longer time for reflection and a broader consultation in order to produce a report for 2025, capable of clarifying the diagnosis and innovating in the remedies. The dissolution of the National Assembly and the situation of reserve imposed by a pre-electoral period led to the suspension of the process then initiated. Not wanting to resolve to move on and think about something else, we wrote this article which we wanted to be balanced but without concession to what seems to us to be in the nature of the truth of the facts. In a context of upheaval in political balances, the display of a project to combat anti-Semitism appears more necessary than ever. It should even constitute a transversal axis claimed by all political and convictional sensitivities.
Fighting anti-Semitism first requires agreeing on an observation. Far from being residual, manifestations of anti-Jewish hostility have truly exploded since the massacres of October 7. This exponential increase is also part of a medium-term process. For more than two decades, hostile speeches and slogans have multiplied as well as acts of violence of various kinds: desecration of graves, physical attacks and homicides of 11 people (including 3 children) “simply” because they are Jewish, against a backdrop of rising radical Islamism. The number of such acts, in absolute value and even more in proportion to the demographic weight of the population concerned, has no equivalent when it comes to other minorities. Impeccable work on a scientific level provides elements of analysis that cannot be ignored, whether it concerns investigations carried out by the CNCDH or the recent x-ray of anti-Semitism (AJC, Fondapol and Ifop).
The permanence of very old accusations
Thus, it is clear that although prejudices have diminished over several decades, between 25 to 30% of the population continues to think that Jews have a privileged relationship with wealth or power. These prejudices are on the rise and over-represented in certain categories of the population. The survey shows significant support for anti-Semitic representations, increasing since 2022, both among young people and within the Muslim population. Perception, let us point out, which does not lead to support for violent actions in the same proportions. From a political angle, the CNCDH survey reveals the presence of more developed anti-Semitism at both extremes of the political spectrum, in greater proportions on the far right than on the far left. Let us add that these valuable surveys also provide information on the correlation between a low level of education and anti-Semitism or racism, suggesting, if it were necessary, that the fight against identity hostilities also involves issues of general policy.
The urgency of a plan aimed at effectively combating anti-Semitism is all the more essential as its manifestations reveal the permanence of very old accusations: prejudice associating Jews with wealth at the origin of the sequestration and murder of ‘Ilan Halimi in 2006 and other cases following the same logic, less publicized; Jewish conspiracy myth spread ad nauseam on social networks, and displayed in certain slogans of the “Day of Rage” demonstrations in 2014 or the “Who” slogan carried by anti-health pass demonstrators; denial or minimization of the Shoah; essentialization of the Jewish population, particularly evident when the Jews of France are held accountable or responsible for events in the Middle East. Attacks directed against the State of Israel as such and not to legitimately criticize the policies of an existing government.
The prevalence and age of anti-Jewish prejudices – anti-Semitism is the oldest form of racism – should not lead us to resign ourselves to its harmful presence, but to imagine new methods of struggle. On condition that we first agree on a few principles:
The first arises from the definition of anti-Semitism as “a set of ideas and practices based on the essentialization of Jewish populations (or considered as such) according to a partially or entirely negative conception. Anti-Semitism is therefore a form of racism whose contents are specific”.
The fight against anti-Semitism requires both identifying its specificities while admitting that it cannot be conducted independently of a fight against all forms of racism. This approach is also the one that was taken by the large so-called “universalist” anti-racist associations.
Thus, republican universalism must be at the center of the strategy that must be built. For two decades, communitarianism has favored phenomena of competition between memories and victims, contributing to the emergence of new manifestations of racism and anti-Semitism.
The need for a more ambitious public policy
The fight against anti-Semitism requires that the various actors in public life (religious, political, social) take stock of their own responsibilities in the past as well as in the present. Let us remember that the Catholic Church, with the Second Vatican Council and the declarations of the bishops of France, has taken an exemplary path in this regard. Analogous, methodical and historically contextualized work on the presence of enmity towards the Jews in Islamic sources remains to be done and assumed by Muslim religious authorities. Political history, from this angle, reveals a different path depending on the political families. On the left, at the end of the 19th century, the Dreyfus Affair represented an important moment of clarification against so-called “social” anti-Semitism. It is clear its permanence or its return, at the beginning of the 21st century, in certain sectors of the left and especially the extreme left thanks to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and under the guise of anti-Zionism. As for the far right, anti-Semitism is still present and accepted among certain radical groups. The National Rally presents itself today as the best defender of the Jews of France, but it is clear that the RN has never clearly accounted for its history, beyond the personal question of the exclusion of Jean -Marie Le Pen of the party. Hypernationalism, by definition, carries a risk of intolerance towards minorities.
The fight against anti-Semitism finally requires that public authorities provide themselves with the means. Until now, educational missions have largely been delegated to memorial associations and institutions, whose work, often remarkable, is not enough to adequately respond to the urgency of the situation. In the absence of a Conference, it is important that intellectuals and politicians admit the seriousness of the situation and agree on the need for a more ambitious public policy.
* Philippe GaudinPhilosopher, Director of IREL Institute for the Study of Religions and Secularism (IREL) within the EPHE and Marie-Anne Matard-BonucciHistorian, Head of CERA (Teaching and Research Center against Racism and Anti-Semitism) within the IFG-Lab, Paris 8.