Should we see in them the words of a man overwhelmed by the demons of his childhood marked by the Shoah, or those of a voter invaded by the fear that the left would abandon the Jewish community? On May 15, Serge Klarsfeld, the famous “Nazi hunter”, historian and lawyer, announced to Darius Rochebin (LCI) that he would vote without hesitation for the National Rally in the event of a duel with La France insoumise. Paradoxical, shocking according to some, coming from a man who dedicated his life to the memory of persecuted Jews.
The mystery of this turnaround does not end there. Speaking to L’Express, Arno Klarsfeld, lawyer for the civil parties in the trials of Paul Touvier and Maurice Papon, takes up his father’s statements and explains them. The eternal young man, a self-proclaimed “centrist”, to whom we dedicated a portrait in April 2023, has not changed. Same frankness imbued with candor, same obsession with “common sense”. At the risk of forgetting the reasons which pushed him to burst into a National Front meeting in 1987, wearing a t-shirt saying “Le Pen = Nazi”? “The RN has changed”, he pleads… Interview.
L’Express: Your father, Serge Klarsfeld, sparked controversy by declaring that he would vote for the National Rally in the event of a duel against La France insoumise… What did you think of it?
Arno Klarsfeld : I often think like my father you know (laughs). We have on the one hand a party which was anti-Semitic but which is no longer so, and which is partly campaigning today on the defense of Jews and support for Israel. On the other hand, we have a party which has become anti-Semitic, La France insoumise, and which will necessarily remain so since the extreme left today sees in Israel and its people a sort of international plutocracy, “dominators” responsible for all the evils of the world… If I had to choose between the RN and LFI, I would side with my father without hesitation. I have always voted for the center or the center-right, I am pro-European, pro-American, I vote for Emmanuel Macron in the first round since he came to power… But it’s not me who makes the rules, I do not decide which duels are imposed on us.
During the 2017 presidential election, you and your father were still firmly opposed to the National Rally. What happened ?
Since this election, Marine Le Pen has clearly condemned the Vel d’Hiv Raid, the responsibility of Pierre Laval and Marshal Pétain. Today we are a long way from this party of the 1990s led by Jean-Marie Le Pen who believed that the gas chambers were a “detail of history” and who doubted the figures for the genocide of the Jews – and against which I campaigned a lot to the point of going to one of its meetings (and getting beaten up by their security services!).
The RN has changed. My father had already begun to realize this when he met Louis Aliot in Perpignan – for which he had been strongly criticized, when he had simply looked at a man for his actions, namely what he had done for the Memory of the Jews in Perpignan. And then there was the attack on October 7… Marine Le Pen came to the demonstration against anti-Semitism. We are therefore far from the one who wanted to leave Europe a few years ago, and who refused to recognize the responsibility of a France, that of Vichy, in complicity in the arrests of Jewish families.
We must face reality: when a party is plagued by anti-Semitism, it is rightly described as far-right. The RN is no longer, it has become a populist or popular right-wing party, depending on your vision of things. And the vast majority of those who vote for this party are good people who are not anti-Semitic. Conversely, we could say, if we wanted to be provocative, that today, it is La France insoumise which is far-right…
What do you mean ?
Insoumise France hides its anti-Semitism behind a transparent veil of anti-Zionism. This party’s obsession with Israel, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s declarations that Jesus was put on the cross by “his own compatriots”, this exploitation of the notion of genocide in Gaza… I don’t want all that in power. Some French people, let’s take the hunters, vote according to the authorizations they will or will not have to capture poor little birds depending on which party is passing. I also vote based on the fate that a party intends to reserve for the Jews. That doesn’t seem crazy to me.
But understand me well: I am not saying that under a rebellious government, Jews would necessarily be persecuted because they were Jews. I say that they would undoubtedly become a sort of political marranos. They would have to shout “death to Israel” to show their credentials. And again, look at where Raphaël Glucksmann is, who has nevertheless not stopped criticizing Israel’s policy when he deemed it necessary…
Just as some criticize LFI for exploiting the Palestinian cause for electoral purposes, do you not fear that the attention paid by the RN to the Jewish community comes from the same logic?
Today, the RN would have no interest in playing “friend” of the Jews – if only because its transformation required getting rid of the anti-Semites that it still had in its ranks. We had to clean up, make enemies. Not pleasing the voters of the Jean-Marie Le Pen fringe… All this for a few votes? I do not believe it.
Does a party whose founder was convicted of anti-Semitism ever “change its face”?
You have to move with the times and use common sense. Jean-Marie Le Pen created and led this party, but Marine Le Pen, who must undoubtedly love him very much – he is her father – still took him out of the picture! You imagine ? I’m not angelizing it, but who can imagine that such a decision would be easy and not bring you problems? Personally, I could never do that to my father. To do this, you have to have a deep conviction that something is wrong. The conviction that it is time to change, precisely.
Have you met Marine Le Pen?
I met Marine Le Pen last February. After the march against anti-Semitism in November, she suggested that my family meet her for lunch, through Louis Aliot. As I don’t like endless lunches in restaurants I said no, but my father thought it was positive to meet her so it happened at home: my parents and I wanted on the one hand to know if we could trust in her as a person, and on the other hand to persuade her to adopt Jacques Chirac’s speech on the responsibility of the French state in the deportation of Jews. I tried to make this discussion positive, without returning to his father’s case. What we hope is that she will have heard us regarding Jacques Chirac’s speech. But I am confident. She was particularly sensitive to my father’s work paying tribute to the French population who, through their protests, allowed three quarters of the Jews of France to survive.
Beyond its history vis-à-vis anti-Semitism, the economic program of the RN do not worry ? In 2017, did you even say to yourself that if the far right came to power, it “won’t get [it] no economic results, so to hold it will be [it] forced to become a police state.
All the politicians talk about “cracs” – to speak like Emmanuel Macron – before the elections. But once in power, they adapt. In this context, Marine Le Pen’s party would undoubtedly emphasize immigration and security, but would end up doing like Giorgia Meloni in Italy, who adapted to Europe because she understood that it was a guarantee of prosperity for his country. Without Europe, France would be like Asterix’s village but without a magic potion. Marine Le Pen undoubtedly understood this.
François Hollande, who decorated your parents, presents himself in Corrèze under the banner of New Popular Front. What does this inspire you?
There is in him, as in other politicians, a rather astonishing form of insatiability. He’s had it all, and he wants more. How can he ally himself with people like Philippe Poutou, frankly… The French leftists who still have common sense say it themselves: economically, the program of the New Popular Front would be suicide for France, but at the same time beyond that, in this alliance, it is clearly La France insoumise which is leading the way.
Which list did you vote for in the European elections?
I hesitated with the animalist party (I really like animals) but I voted for Valérie Hayer’s list. However, I am aware that my vote is partly a class vote. Because if I had trouble making ends meet or was faced with daily insecurity, this one might be different.
The idea of sending troops to Ukraine seems crazy to me, but Emmanuel Macron likes my parents. See what a vote means (laughs)… More seriously, I am faithful to my convictions. For the legislative elections, I will also choose the candidate from the presidential camp in my constituency. But I recognize it, I am lucky to vote in the 8th arrondissement of Paris where we have not yet reached the stage of having to choose between an LFI candidate and one from the National Rally. But if that were to be the case, I told you, my choice would be made.
Was the dissolution of Parliament a mistake?
And how ! Emmanuel Macron stupidly – no, thoughtlessly – believed that the left would not succeed in uniting. But she had to do it, mathematically, to avoid disappearing. Otherwise, no more posts! How could the President of the Republic imagine that this type of calculation would not take place… He knows them, he has worked with them for years. These people know how to put aside their “differences” – as we now say – to maintain their power.
In a portrait that The Express had dedicated to you concerning your positions on the war in Ukraine, the lawyer and former president of Licra Alain Jakubowicz, who has known you since childhood, said of you that “despite the excess and sometimes the clumsiness of some of his comments, Arno is above all a fervent defender of dialogue and peace. Do you sincerely think that the arrival of the RN would promote dialogue and peace in France?
(Silence) I am a republican, and it would go against my principles to oppose what seems to be the wish of the majority of French people. You must listen. I don’t see why the French would go out into the streets if the RN is legitimately elected and respects republican institutions… But if they don’t respect them, then it will be legitimate to oppose.
Do you really believe it? Last weekend alone, hundreds of thousands of French people took to the streets to oppose the RN…
I am optimistic by nature, I have confidence in the French. Nobody – I mean civil society – wants chaos. The French are a deeply kind people by nature, who vote for what they think is best for their country. During World War II, many of those who hid Jews did not have to do so. And yet…
How does your father view the reactions his statements provoked? “Your declaration of allegiance to the heirs of those who perpetrated the Holocaust of the Jews in the death camps in Europe disqualifies the fight you led,” wrote in Humanity sociologist Alain Hayot regarding this one.
My family received several parcel bombs, our car was blown up by a bomb. We experienced extraordinary things, in the sense that it doesn’t happen every day. So the criticisms aimed at him… My father was never afraid to say what he thought.
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