A 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped and verbally abused by several boys last weekend, an incident that has raised tensions in France over attitudes toward Western Europe’s largest Jewish community.
President Emmanuel Macron is a centrist. It was decided to hold early elections this month In a move that shocked even his closest allies, he responded by denouncing the “scourge of anti-Semitism” in French schools. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal urged politicians to “refuse to trivialize” hatred of Jews, a thinly veiled attack on Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a left-wing leader with a keen interest in Palestine, who on June 2 called anti-Semitism in France “residual.”
The government says there were more than 360 anti-Semitic incidents in France in the first three months of this year, an average of four a day, a 300% increase from the same period last year. In the latest incident that shocked the nation, three boys allegedly dragged a girl into an abandoned building, where they repeatedly raped and humiliated her.
The three boys, aged 12 and 13, one of whom was acquainted with the girl, were being investigated for rape, death threats and insults “aggravated by their connection to the victim’s religious beliefs,” prosecutors said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that two of the boys had been placed in pretrial detention.
The place of Jews in French society has become a prominent issue in this election as the once anti-Semitic National Rally party, whose anti-immigration stance is central to its burgeoning popularity, has become one of the staunchest supporters of Israel and French Jews since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel.
On the contrary, the “France Unsubmissive” organization led by Mélenchon strongly condemned Israel’s military operations in Gaza as “genocide.”
Such condemnations often seemed to veer into outright anti-Semitism, as when Mélenchon accused the head of the Jewish National Assembly, Jael Braun-Pivit, of “encouraging massacres by camping out in Tel Aviv” and called former French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne Daughter of a Holocaust Survivorexpressing “foreign views”.
Melenchon said on Wednesday he was “shocked by this rape” in Courbevoie, a suburb northwest of Paris where prosecutors say rapes have occurred.
The sudden confrontation with the pro-Israel National Alliance, whose anti-Semitic founder Jean-Marie Le Pen described the Holocaust as The “details” of history, Macron last week called the far left “guilty of anti-Semitism,” posing a agonizing choice for French Jews and others.
Can people really vote for Mr Mélenchon’s France Indomitable because they loathe it, given that Ms Le Pen’s party has a history of anti-Semitism and, if elected, will resolutely seek to ban the wearing of Muslim headscarves in public?
In many constituencies, the second round of voting on July 7 is likely to be a showdown between the two extreme parties. Many centrist voters are tired of Macron and don’t want to vote for him anymore.
Serge Klarsfeld, a French Jew and a well-known Nazi hunter, said this week that if forced to choose between the two, his mind has been made up. “The National Rally supports the Jews, supports the State of Israel, and given my activities over the past 60 years, between an anti-Semitic party and a pro-Jewish party, it is normal that I would vote for the pro-Jewish party,” he said in an interview with LCI TV.
Others do not see this as ‘normal.’ In 2022, Klarsfeld co-signed an article in Libération titled “Reject Le Pen, daughter of racism and anti-Semitism.” It was a measure of the progress the National Rally had made in two years, as the party was on the verge of victory and, possibly, the premiership.
On Thursday, academic Michèle Cohen-Halimi, writer Francis Cohen and film director Leopold von Verschuer published an article in the newspaper Le Monde titled “Serge Klarsfeld bypasses history and turns it upside down.” The article said his “unexpected legitimization of national rallies” was a betrayal of the victims of the Nazis, whose tragic fate his research had revealed.
Alain Finkielcro, one of France’s most prominent public intellectuals and a member of the French Academy, described his “nightmare” in the weekly magazine Le Point, facing an almost impossible choice.
He believes the “France Insubordinate” movement is based on “hatred of Israel” and quoted Aymeric Caron, a member of the new Popular Front coalition formed by left-wing parties, who believes that Jews are subhuman.
On May 27, Mr. Kahlon said on the social platform X that “it is clear that Gaza has shown that no, we are not the same human species,” referring to those who support Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
Finkielkraut wrote that voting for the National Rally to build a bastion of anti-Semitism had always been unthinkable to him. “I have not yet done it, but if there is no other option, maybe at some point I will have to do it. It would be a nightmare. The current situation is heartbreaking for French Jews.”
The National Rally took part in a major demonstration against anti-Semitism in Paris in November. Macron did not attend. Mélenchon also did not attend, saying that “friends of unconditional support for the Holocaust have their meeting point.”
The decline of the French political centrists represented by Macron is further intensifying. On June 9, Macron’s Renaissance Party was defeated by the National Rally in the French parliamentary elections. On July 7, the National Rally and the New Popular Front are likely to become the two largest forces in parliament.
France’s major Jewish organizations, which represent many of France’s estimated 450,000 Jews, have rejected the fierce pro-Semitic sentiments of Le Pen and her young protégé Jordan Bardella.
“There are alternatives to this confrontation between the anti-Semitic left and the nationalist, populist far right,” Yonathan Arfi, president of CRIF, an umbrella organization representing French Jews, told France Inter radio on Thursday.
“We know from Jewish history the costs of populism; we know that, whatever the National Alliance’s leaders may say today, it has never been a bulwark against anti-Semitism,” Mr Alfie added.
Raphael Glucksmann, a moderate Socialist whose triumph in European Parliament elections and subsequent joining of the New Popular Front angered many of his supporters, who loathe Mélenchon, said it was “not enough to express indifference, sympathy and disgust” in response to the latest attacks.
He added, “The surge in anti-Semitic rhetoric, behavior, and violence since October 7 must serve as a collective wake-up call.”
The National Rally’s efforts to purge anti-Semitism appear to be underway. This week the party had to withdraw its support for Joseph Martin, its former candidate in the French constituency of Brittany, after Libération newspaper revealed that Martin had posted a statement on social media in 2018 saying that “poison gas brought justice to the victims of the Holocaust.”
Aurelien Brittain Contributed reporting.
