Antisemitism Skyrockets in France

The latest polls on antisemitic attitudes in France are hair-raising. Many people in France, including its Muslims, now subscribe to more than six “antisemitic prejudices.” One in five young people think the country would be better off if the Jews left. There have been a rash of attacks on Jews, including Jewish girls and women who have been raped as payback for the IDF attacks in Gaza. More on the hair-raising rise in antisemitic acts and attitudes can be found here: “Half of French People Adhere to Over 6 Antisemitic Prejudices, 12% Happy to See Jews Leave Country: Survey,” Algemeiner, November 22, 2024:

Hostility toward the Jewish people has surged to alarming levels in France, where half the population adhere to more than six antisemitic prejudices and nearly one in five young people want to see the departure of Jews from the country, according to a new survey.

Ipsos, a market research and consulting firm, conducted the survey of the French public for the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews, to examine the country’s attitudes toward the Jewish community amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes over the past year.

The findings, unveiled by CRIF on Thursday and first reported by the French news magazine Le Point, revealed a surge in antisemitic attitudes across France.

Among France’s general population, 12 percent of people are happy to see Jews leave the country, up from just 6 percent in 2020, according to the survey.

“It’s a terrifying figure,” CRIF president Yonathan Arfi told the radio station Europe 1 when asked about the finding.

The number goes up among people under the age of 35, of whom a striking 17 percent think that the departure of Jews from France would be good for the country.

“It is contrary to the historical trend,” Arfi told Le Point. “Young people are more receptive to antisemitic, Islamist, and conspiracy theories, which are invading social networks.”

As for people aged 18 to 24, only 53 percent think that the majority of Jews are well integrated into the population, compared to 84 percent of French people more broadly, the survey found.

Overall, nearly half (46 percent) of French people today adhere to more than six anti-Jewish prejudices, compared to 37 percent in 2020, according to the results. Meanwhile, almost a quarter of those surveyed think that Jews are not really French like the rest of their countrymen, an uptick of more than six points.

The numbers increase among backers of France’s main far-left and far-right political parties. Indeed, the survey found that 52 percent of those who support the far-right Rassemblement National (RN — “National Rally”) and 55 percent of those who support the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI — “France Unbowed”) adhere to at least six antisemitic stereotypes. And a third of LFI supporters indicated they adhere to at least nine such prejudices….

Supporters of both the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) and the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) adhere to at least six antisemitic stereotypes, but the LFI is far worse in its antisemitic views, for fully one-third of the party’s supporters accept nine such stereotypes.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon is a rabble-rouser who does not hide his anti-Israel and his antisemitic views. He has accused Israel of “genocide,” has suggested that French Jews are not loyal to France, but only to Israel, has never denounced Hamas for its October 7 attack, but called the attack “an armed offensive by Palestinian forces” that came “in the context of the intensification by Israel of the policy of occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.” He has attacked Raphaël Glucksmann of the party Place Publique for supporting a resolution adopted by the European Parliament denouncing Hamas’ atrocities. To this day, neither Melenchon nor the party he leads has denounced Hamas’ atrocities. But he and his party have been deeply critical of Israel for its “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” in Gaza, and demanded that France place an embargo on weapons it has been selling to the Jewish state. He supports the ICC’s issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Antisemitic acts rose by ten times in the last three months of 2023 — when the war in Gaza began — over the same period in 2022. And as that war continues, and the news brings fresh stories about civilian casualties that are taken out of context, anger at Israel rises. Nothing is said about Hamas’ embedding of combatants and weapons in civilian areas. Nor is anything reported about the enormous efforts the IDF makes to warn civilians away from areas about to be targeted. All the French public sees is pictures of wounded or dead children and the ruins of buildings; no wonder, with such daily fare, anti-Israel animus, and antisemitism, have been rising in France.