Macron to combat anti-semitism

"We have understood, with horror, that antisemitism is still alive. And on this issue, our response must be unforgiving." French President Emmanuel Macron

FRANCE: French President Emmanuel Macron pledged yesterday to fight firmly against anti-semitism wherever it surfaces, whether in the street or online, and to protect the nation’s Jews amid growing concerns about intolerance.

In a speech to France’s leading Jewish group, Macron insisted there was no reason for Jews to flee the country, which is home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States.

‘‘There are hatreds that are rising again, there are the worse kinds of crimes,’' Macron said at the annual dinner of the CRIF umbrella organisation.

‘‘We have understood, with horror, that anti-semitism is still alive.

‘‘And on this issue, our response must be unforgiving. France would not be itself if Jewish citizens had to leave because they were afraid,’' he said.

Macron pledged continued protection for Jewish schools and synagogues and other sites, as well as a new government plan to fight racism and anti-semitism online, which is notably spreading among young people.

Macron also called for a Europe-wide effort to force internet platforms to remove content that feeds extremism.

The latest official figures show that anti-semitic violence increased 26 per cent last year in France and that criminal damage to Jewish places of worship and burials increased 22 per cent.

Macron also waded carefully into a heated debate that has split French intellectual circles over whether to publish anti-semitic pamphlets by a renowned writer.

Gallimard, one of the largest, most influential and most prestigious French publishing houses, said in December it planned to republish for the first time since World War II a series of three fiercely anti-semitic lampoons written between 1937 and 1941 by noted French writer Louis-ferdinand Celine.

Celine, who was convicted of being a wartime collaborator with France’s Nazi occupiers before being granted amnesty, opposed reprinting the tracts before his death, which came in 1961. He is best known for Journey to the End of the Night, an acclaimed 1932 first novel that is still frequently studied by French high school students.

Controversy has erupted in literary circles over the publication, between those who advocate total freedom of speech and those who warn against the dangers of such texts in the context of rising anti-semitism.

Antoine Gallimard, president of the publishing house, recently decided to suspend publication of the pamphlets.

Macron said France did not have ‘‘moral, historic or memorial police’', but added, ‘‘I don’t think we need these pamphlets’' to understand Celine.

Meanwhile, CRIF leader Francis Kalifat encouraged Macron to follow United States President Donald Trump’s lead in recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but Macron called the move an ‘‘error’'. –AP