Author: Michel Gurfinkiel
Publication: FrontPageMagazine.com
Date: January 26, 2004
URL: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11909
There is currently an upsurge of
anti-Semitism all over Europe. In France, the European country with the
largest Jewish community (600,000 to 1 million, or 1% to 1.5 % of a global
population of 62 million), it is reaching alarming proportions. According
to recent polls, anywhere from one-third to one-half of French Jews either
feels threatened enough or unsure enough about the future to
consider leaving the country or
to advise his children to leave the country.
This is not petty anti-Semitism,
as we may have known it for about 50 years in North America and in most
of Western Europe - a tale of marginal incidents being carried on by fringe
extremists - but rather a development that affects the entire nation. This
is not a case of mere anti-Zionism either. The contemporary French anti-Semites
are explicitly targeting Jews and Judaism, not Zionists. And they make
no distinctions between the Jewish people at large, whether the Jewish
community in France, in Europe, or in Israel.
And finally, this is not a case
of bigotry, where anti-Jewish prejudice is derived from a lack of information
about Judaism and the Holocaust. On the contrary, Judaism has been playing
an important and visible national role in France throughout the last decades
of the 20th century, and Holocaust awareness or pieties about the Holocaust
are deemed to be part and parcel of the contemporary national culture of
France. The 16th of July, the anniversary of the infamous roundup of Parisian
Jews in 1942, is now a national day. Every school where Jewish pupils were
arrested either by the German Gestapo or the Vichy France police has been
turned into a national landmark. For all that, the new anti-Semitism has
been gaining ground day by day.
President Chirac, who first flatly
denied anything like that was taking place, now acknowledges it as a major
political concern. On November 17, 2003, he solemnly warned that "attacks
against French Jews are attacks against France" and issued orders for a
monthly review, at the highest government level, of anti-Semitic incidents.
What Are the Facts?
Since 2000, anti-Semitic violence
has been rampant in France. According to the Interior Ministry, anti-Jewish
violence has dramatically increased, to a yearly average of about 120 incidents
in the 2000-02 period from a yearly average of about 10 incidents throughout
the 1990s. Some 80% of all racist incidents in mainland France (except
for the island of Corsica), are anti- Semitic. Some 20 synagogues, schools,
and other communal facilities were destroyed either by arson or vandalization
in the 2000-02 period. Two further cases of complete vandalization (one
synagogue, one high school) occurred in 2003.
Several Jewish shops have been attacked.
Jewish people are routinely being molested or harassed in some areas, especially
on their way to synagogue or school or at school. Several rabbis have been
attacked and beaten in the street. Jewish youths have been attacked while
exercising at public sports facilities. Jewish school buses have been stoned
or even shot at. One case of abduction and one of near lynching in the
street have been reported. And there is some reason to believe that two
murder cases in 2003 were motivated by anti- Jewish hatred.
Even if and when actual violence
is subsiding, the climate of the country is deteriorating. Murderous anti-Jewish
slogans such as "Death to Jews!" are routinely being shouted at large-scale
street demonstrations. Various groups and even elected officials are campaigning
for a global boycott of Israeli and "Israeli-related" (i.e., Jewish) goods,
or for the suspension or the termination of academic cooperation with Israel
or even with individual Israeli scientists, a move prohibited under French
law.
Explicitly anti-Jewish books have
been published by major publishing houses, including books intended for
children and teenagers, a market that, in theory, is strictly regulated
by law in France.
A radical Islamist preacher who
publicly singled out some French intellectuals for being Jewish and therefore
foes of Islam, Tariq Ramadan, was turned into a television superstar of
sorts. So has an Afro-French humorist who indulges in provocative anti-Jewish
jokes and statements, Dieudonne Mbala.
Moreover, according to various reports
and at least two recently published books ("Les Territoires Perdus de la
Republique," edited by Emmanuel Brenner, and "La Republique et L'Islam,"
by Michele Tribalat and Jeanne- Helene Kaltenbach), schools and universities
are becoming major hotbeds of anti-Semitism.
In some cases, both parents and
pupils insist on rewriting the textbooks in a more anti-Jewish or anti-Israel
way, and dropping programs and debates about Judaism and the Holocaust,
which are part of the government-mandated curriculum. In many places, Jewish
students, teachers, and academics feel physically or verbally threatened
or abused but get precious little support from principals or teachers and
colleagues.
The Response
The response from the government
and the other powers that be has been limited or ineffective for too long.
It took more than a year, from October 2000 to November 2001, for the French
press (some exceptions notwithstanding) to report extensively about the
anti-Semitic crisis. Even now, some press and broadcast groups keep referring
to "intergroup friction," as if Jews were engaging in racist violence as
well or retaliating, which is not the case. The French political class
has reacted in an even more awkward manner.
Political parties and nongovernmental
organizations didn't call for demonstrations against anti-Semitic violence,
as might have been expected, or as it has occurred in the past (in 1980,
1982, and 1988), nor associated, on April 7, 2002, with a mass rally against
anti-Semitism and terrorism sponsored by the Conseil Representatif des
Institutions Juives de France (the Representative
Council of Jewish Organizations
in France).
Under the socialist government of
Lionel Jospin, until April 22, 2002, officials - especially at the Interior
Ministry - were busy denying or downplaying the crisis. Things have improved
since the 2002 elections, with the conservative government led by Jean-Pierre
Raffarin. Still, the Interior Ministry remains very cautious in its estimates
of anti-Semitic incidents and seems at times reluctant to enforce the existing
antiracist laws, including a new law passed by the conservative-dominated
National Assembly at the request of the conservative Jewish representative
for the 9th District of Paris, Pierre Lellouche.
An extremely small number of people
have been prosecuted or indicted for anti-Semitic offenses. Those who have,
unfortunately, have not been sentenced as heavily as the law permits. More
often than not, French courts have turned down complaints of anti-Semitism.
There is even a case of a Jewish family that was sentenced to a 3,000-euro
fine for simply having lodged such a complaint.
The Muslim Factor
The new anti-Semitism in France
has much to do with the unprecedented immigration from the Islamic world,
both legal and illegal, that is currently reshaping the country. Conservative
estimates - in the absence of reliable race or religion-related statistics,
which are not allowed under French law - put the current Muslim population
of France at 6 million. Some sources point to 8 million.
The non-Muslim population is aging
and declining. Its fertility rate is said to be close to 1.4 children for
every woman, just like in most neighboring European countries (e.g., Germany:
1.3; Italy and Spain: 1.2).
The Muslim population, however,
is young and rising: its average fertility rate is said to be of three
or four children for every woman. When it comes to the youngest age bracket
- residents under the age of 25 - the overall ratio of Muslims rises significantly
(25% to 30%). Moreover, there is evidence that intermarriage is common
between non-Muslims and Muslims, that most interfaith families tend to
associate with Islam rather than with Christianity, and that conversion
to Islam in rising all over France, whereas the Christian faith and practice
is plummeting. Islam may thus develop soon into a full-fledged French religion
and culture, and even replace Christianity, at some point in the future,
as the main religion of the land.
Quite naturally, this sudden demographic
and religious change is bringing about a social and political change: French
Muslims are poised to play a growing role in the coming elections (most
are French citizens by now, especially the younger generation, since France
bestows full citizenship on any child born on its soil) as well as in education,
business, professions, the Civil Service, the police and the military forces.
The conservative minister of the
interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, is in favor of affirmative action for Muslims.
Perhaps as a first token of things to come, he put a Muslim prefet (governor),
Aissa Dermouche, in charge of the departement (county) of Jura, in Eastern
France.
Now, it is a sad fact that traditional
Muslim culture, both at the popular and the scholarly level, is deeply
contemptuous of Judaism and the Jews. And it is another sad fact that contemporary
Muslim culture - either strictly religious or semi-secular - is permeated
by a more extreme, more radical, anti-Semitic philosophy, according to
which Jews are not just despicable but intrinsically unreliable or evil
and should be either marginalized or annihilated.
As far as Muslim immigrants in France
are concerned, they come from countries where these negative views are
nurtured by religious education, political discourse, the educational curriculum,
and the press. Once in France, they keep in touch with their country's
culture and biases in many ways, including Arab television networks. The
same considerations apply, to a large extent, to the French-born citizens
of the Muslim faith, who are the sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters
of the immigrants.
French Muslims thus live in a cultural
enclave and are well equipped to dismiss those parts of the dominant French
culture that do not fit their own culture. Admittedly, some parts of the
immigrant community are less prejudiced.
As a rule, the more committed to
Islam and Arab culture they are, the more anti-Semitic French Muslims tend
to be. Conversely, the less committed they are, the more likely they are
to reject anti-Semitism. This translates into ethnic lines.
French Muslims of Arab descent are
usually religious Muslims and unreconstructed anti-Semites. French Muslims
of Berber descent (especially the large Kabyle community, estimated at
1.5 million) are usually more secular and more prepared to reject radical
anti-Semitism and engage into good relations with Jews. As for militant
Berbers or Kabyles, they tend to be frankly friendly with Jews and to entertain
positive views about Israel.
Old Anti-Semitism Reawakened
The growth of Islam and of Islamic
anti-Semitism is only one side of the problem. The other side is that it
is reawakening and reinforcing an autochthonous French anti-Semitic tradition.
Anti-Semitism, both right wing and left wing (the 19th century socialist,
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, advocated "either sending back the Jews to Asia
or exterminating them") played a rather important role in French culture
and politics from the Revolution through the Third Republic, and was turned,
with comparatively little effort, into a state policy under the pro-German
Vichy regime, from 1940 to 1944.
Even after it was suppressed as
thoroughly politically incorrect in the post- Holocaust era, it has retained
tacit or not so tacit acceptance in many quarters, including the political
establishment. The man who headed the French Resistance against the Germans
and Vichy, and then founded the Fifth Republic, General Charles de Gaulle,
in 1967, shockingly described the Jewish people in a public speech delivered
in the wake of the Six Days War, as "an elite, self- conscious, and domination
oriented nation" - an anti-Semitic cliche. One year later, he alluded to
"noteworthy Israeli influences" in French public life.
The socialist president of France,
from 1981 to 1995, Francois Mitterrand, was reported to have expressed
similar views in private. He had been close to radical anti-Semitic circles
as a young man and remained for all of his life a close (and devoted) friend
of Pierre Bousquet, the head of the Vichy police during the war, and as
such, one of the main organizers of the Holocaust in
France.
It comes, accordingly, as no surprise
that the lesser ranks of French politics and public administration feel
free to engage in radical anti-Semitic discourse or practice of one sort
or the other. Vilification of Israel as an illegitimate "rogue state" or
even as a "little s___ state" is not infrequent among senior civil servants,
especially at France's foreign office, the Quai d'Orsay.
Anti-Semitism has also extended,
time and again, to mainstream politics, either in a thinly veiled form
as "anti-Zionism" (a term favored by the left) or as "anti- lobbyism"(a
euphemism in use at one well-known far right organization, Jean- Marie
Le Pen's National Front).
Quite obviously, the present anti-Semitic
crisis in France should be addressed by the citizens of France first, either
Jewish or not. Quite naturally, it should elicit appropriate concern from
Jewish communities in the rest of the world. However, the fact that an
important, democratic nation in Western Europe can be so quickly and so
thoroughly undermined by anti-Semitism should also be matter of concern
- and a warning - for all Western nations, including America.
