Mass marches across France against anti-Semitism
MARCHES and gatherings against anti-Semitism are taking place across France following a series of antiSemitic acts that shocked the country.
Answering a call from political parties, thousands of protesters and several government members took to the streets yesterday.
The upsurge in anti-Semitism in France, home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside Israel and the US, reached a climax last weekend with a torrent of hate speech directed at prominent philosopher Alain Finkielkraut during a yellow-vest march.
The assault came days after the government reported a huge rise in incidents of anti-Semitism last year: 541 registered incidents, up 74% from the 311 registered in 2017.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was due to lead the government delegation at Republic Square. National Assembly president Richard Ferrand and Senate head Gerard Larcher were to hold a moment of silence at the Shoah memorial in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron was due to deliver a speech at tonight’s annual dinner by leading Jewish group Crif.
“Anti-Semitism is deeply rooted in French society,” Philippe said. “We must be totally determined to fight it.”
In other incidents this month, swastika graffiti was found on street portraits of Simone Veil – a survivor of Nazi death camps and a European Parliament president who died in 2017 – the word “Juden” was painted on the window of a bagel restaurant in Paris and two trees planted to honour a young Jewish man tortured to death in 2006 were vandalised, one cut down.
On Friday, two youths were arrested after they allegedly fired shots at a synagogue with an air rifle in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, where a large Jewish community lives. Sarcelles mayor Patrick Haddad said prosecutors consider the motive as anti-Semitism.
Political parties from across the spectrum were due to unite in Paris but Marine Le Pen’s far-right party was to hold a separate event. Sociologist Danny Trom, author of the book
France Without Jews, says thousands of Jewish people leave France every year because of the rise of anti-Semitism. “This is a low-intensity war,” Trom said, referring to the murder in 2012 of three children and a teacher from a Jewish school by an Islamic extremist in Toulouse. |