France toughens stance on attacks on Jews
From Charles Bremner in Paris
January 08, 2003
FRENCH government ministers will attend a Jewish prayer service in Paris today as a show of anger against the perceived rise of anti-Semitism in France.
The visit by Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, and other colleagues follows vigorous condemnation by President Chirac of a knife attack last Friday on Rabbi Gabriel Farhi of the Jewish Liberal Movement (MJLF).
The rabbi was wounded in the stabbing at his synagogue by a man shouting pro-Palestinian slogans. On Monday, Rabbi Farhi’s car was set on fire outside his home.
In dozens of attacks last year, synagogues were burnt and damaged and Jews were subjected to violence, mainly at the hands of young men of Arab origin. The strong showing by Jean-Marie Le Pen, figurehead of the far Right, in last April’s presidential elections also seemed a throwback to the intolerance of the wartime Vichy state.
The issue was exacerbated this week with a call by a section of Paris University to halt European Union contacts with Israeli universities, and by news that immigration from France to Israel had doubled last year.
The departure of 2,566 people to Israel, mainly members of France’s 575,000-strong Jewish community, is seen as a consequence of the hostility.
French Jewish leaders have played down the attacks, depicting them largely as a symptom of the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, their American and Israeli colleagues have pilloried France for tolerating anti-Semitism.
On Monday night, celebrity writers joined a demonstration by 500 people against the decision by the governing board of Paris VI University at Jussieu to urge an end to EU academic links and subsidies in a sign of disapproval of the policies of the Israeli Government. The protesters said that the university was calling for an “anti-Jewish boycott”, similar to that applied by Nazis.
M Chirac is still trying to repair the damage that he caused last spring when he insisted that there was no anti-Semitism in France.
Condemning the “intolerable violence” against Rabbi Farhi on Monday, M Chirac said that “there can be no place in our Republic for anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia or acts of religious intolerance”.
M Sarkozy has also promised to investigate the attacks. The minister, who is also deputy to Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, has pleased US Jewish leaders by branding such attacks “hate crimes” and ordering police to treat them as such. The Government has also just toughened penalties for hate crimes.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, congratulated M Sarkozy for reversing the “callousness and denial of official France”.
Opinion is divided inside France’s Jewish community over the nature of the acts. Some see them as a return to the anti-Semitic past, while others distinguish between the racial and political aspects.
Menahem Gourary, director of the Jewish Agency in Paris, said yesterday that last year’s exodus to Israel reflected something more than distress over anti-Semitism in France.
“The decision to emigrate stems from something deeper. It reflects above all a desire to ensure the future of Israel.”
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