There are 550,000 Jews in France, more than in any country save Israel and the United States. They are economically secure, with many in the medical and legal professions, in academia, in journalism, and in business. But they do not feel secure. Jewish boys and men no longer wear their kippahs in public, Jewish women don’t wear their necklaces with Star of David pendants. They know how often Jews have been attacked in public for being Jews — attacked not by the traditional antisemites of the right, but by the new carriers of antisemitism, the Muslims of France, who have brought with them in their mental baggage a deep animosity, even a murderous hatred, of Jews.
Jews are well aware of all the Muslim violence visited on Jews. There was the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Ilan Halimi by a Muslim gang, whose members were sure a stiff ransom would be paid because they were convinced that “all Jews are rich.” Halimi was not rich; he made his modest living by working in a cell phone store. There was the beating and defenestration, of 65-year-old Sarah Halimi by a Muslim neighbor, Kobili Traoré. There was the torture, and then setting on fire, of 84-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, murdered by a Muslim whom she had known, and befriended, since his childhood. There were the four Jewish shoppers at the Hyper Cacher — a kosher supermarket at the Porte de Vincennes — murdered by Muslim Amedy Coulibaly. There were the murders, just outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, of 30-year-old Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two small sons Aryeh, aged six, and Gavriel, aged three, and eight-year-old Myriam Monsonego, daughter of the school’s principal, by a Muslim fanatic, Mohammed Merah.
And just now there has been the arson attack by a Muslim who set multiple fires around the Beth Yaacov synagogue in the Mediterranean resort town of La Grande Motte.
The French state has strengthened security around synagogues and Jewish schools, but the Muslim threat of violence against Jewish individuals and institutions remains. And Jews do not want to spend their lives worrying about their physical safety and that of their children. In addition, they have felt more abandoned by their non-Jewish countrymen. After the October 7 atrocities, only 20,000 people, most of them Jews, came out to Place Victor-Hugo in the sixteenth arrondissement to demonstrate against Hamas. But pro-Hamas demonstrations on the streets, and in the universities, have been frequent all over France. These are deeply upsetting for Jews, with 10,000 or more people showing up at a moment’s notice, seemingly everywhere, to declare their support for a terror group whose reason for being is to destroy the Jewish state and expel or kill all of its Jewish inhabitants. This has taken its emotional toll. 47% of French Jews in the latest poll say they have considered leaving France, mainly because they fear for the future of Jews in France, or fear “for the future of France,” which signifies anxiety over the growing power of Muslims demographically, and politically, in the country.
More on the growing alarm among French Jews can be found here: “Consistory VP: ‘Jews are beginning to lose hope for a future in France’ – interview,” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, September 2, 2024:
In the wake of the La Grande-Motte Synagogue attack and political turmoil, France Central Consistory vice president and Marseilles Consistory president Michel Cohen Tenoudji expressed concern to The Jerusalem Post about the future of French Jewry and fate of the French Republic.
After the August 24 arson terrorist attack on the Beth Yaacov synagogue in southern France, the Jewish community was shocked and outraged, said Cohen Tenoudji. The attack by the 33-year-old Algerian man, which wounded a police officer, amplified fears about rising antisemitism in the country.
“The Jews are beginning to lose hope for a future in France,” said Cohen Tenoudji. “Jewish life is rich and prosperous in France but everyone holds their breath wondering how much longer this will last.”
The Jewish leader, one of the Central Consistory’s vice presidents, referenced Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ) statistics which indicated that antisemitic incidents in the Republic had increased by 1000% in 2023 compared to the previous year.
That is a tenfold rise — in just one year — in the number of antisemitic incidents. No wonder Jews in France are alarmed.
Tony Rice says
If Jews were to leave France, the economy will suffer, and it ain’t too good as it is. National debt rather high.
John Pepple says
I know a liberal Jew, a retired professor of French, who admits it is too dangerous to go to France anymore. But trying to find the silver lining, she said that Israel now has better pastries than it used to due to the influx of French Jews. Sigh.
Wellington says
No, Jews do not have much of a future in France, courtesy of Islam and cowardly or evil dhimmis.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Particularly after Macron managed to pull off a coup after the last election which would have been won by Marine Le Pen
Raymond Bullock says
The writing is on the wall, unfortunately for the stupid French government. France is a goner as an independant nation. They committed national suicide. At least Jews can go to America or Isreal.
Emilie Green says
“‘Do We Have A Future in France?”
When that question first appeared in June, 1940, many ignored trying to find an answer.
Sadly, the answer found them.
Same question today. Along with the same answer.
Walter Sieruk says
It’s a worth wondering “Do the Jewish people a chance for a good future in France.”
The reason why this question was even posed is because there is a movement that is known as the “Stealth jihad.” The technique is practiced by Muslims who are also stealth jihadists to infiltrate France using lies and deception, Taqiyya, for the advancement of Islam with its Sharia.
This Muslim scheme for achieving the goal of the Islamic agenda is as, many times, as subtly effective as it is demonically clever. Furthermore, this Islamic gradualism, in some ways, is very similar to the instruction printed in the book entitled THE ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu. Which reads, “At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.”
If Islam grows in power the increase in malice-filled vicious violent against the Jews in France will also increase.
Walter Sieruk says
If the Jewish people will have a good further in France , then there is a need to stop the movement that is known as the “Stealth jihad” in France.
There are many stealth jihadist Muslims living in France who committed to and are actively engaging the Islamic goal of stealth jihad for the advancement of Islam with its Sharia in the France by the means of this “stealth jihad. This technique the Muslims who are the stealth jihadists are able to infiltrate the different nations of the West and gradually “ ,inch by inch” and likewise “step by step.” Further, archive progression for their Islamic agenda for France..
To this end the stealth jihadists will and do use the Islamic of Taqiyya, which the modus operandi of speaks and printing lies that are very deceptive.
As explained in a more detail by a former Muslim and Hezbollah member who now a Christian .In his book he reveals” Lying , treachery and deception became Islam’s key tactics in conquering others. Those tactics are gathered in a doctrinal statement called “Taqiyya” which is one of the most effective arms for the spread of Islam. It means “Holy Deception” which means the use of every lie you can in order to spread Islam or to win the war against the enemy.” [1]
]1] Islam and the Son of God by Daniel Shayesteh , page 41.
James Lincoln says
If I were a Jew, I would not want my family to grow up in fiercely anti-Semitic France.
I’d get out of that “islam-loving” crap hole:
Macron can stick it.