New York University : the Great Fear of French Jews Jean Marc Dreyfus

I must confess that I did not travel alone from Paris to New York. I came with my mother. Her name is Liliane. She is not in the audience. She must be somewhere in New York, shopping… My mother lives in Strasbourg, she is not an academic, she is not especially paranoiac concerning anti-Semitism in France and, having been raised in Alsace, she is a good patriot and loves France. She is not particularly obsessed with the memory of the Holocaust, though she lost many cousins in deportation, she always says 18. My mother became famous in France, for a short period of time, as a full page article was published on her in Le Monde. The story is the following. One journalist of this newspaper I know, Xavier Ternisien, called me at the end of September 2000. It was the very beginning of a series of anti-Semitic incidents, and the director of Le Monde asked Xavier Ternisien, who is in charge of religion and religious life in France, to go to a provincial town, with an important Jewish community. Xavier Ternisien called me and asked me who he should interview in Strasbourg. I said : go to my mother. Just the day before the journalist arrived to Strasbourg, a demonstration had been organized by a small, local political party, named : “Parti des Musulmans de France”, party of Muslims in France. This very small party is the only one in France to present itself as a Muslim Party. His leader is the Tunisian born Mohamed Latrèche, an agitator and, to say the less, very controversial character. It is for example known that Latrèche had spent some years of his lifetime in Syria.

I Difficulty to assess what really happened

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The demonstration was officially against the Israeli policy in the occupied territories, as violence was very rapidly gaining ground again. My mother was driving her car in Strasbourg and was blocked by a demonstration against Israel and Sharon and in favor of the Palestianians (a few hundreds, maybe up to 2000 people). And she heard demonstrators shouting : “Mort aux Juifs” (Death to Jews). She was shocked and she told this story to the journalist of Le Monde. Ternisien wrote an almost entire page on this story with the title “On a crié Mort aux Juifs dans les rues de Strasbourg”. It was the first major article in the French press to assess the rise of anti-Semitism, the beginning of a serious wave of anti-Semitic acts in France. It was later said in the French Jewish community that the French press, and especially Le Monde, did not speak about these acts, that they refused to acknowledge what the French Jews were going through. This article was the beginning of a series of articles and reportages in Strasbourg and in Alsace. It had some interesting consequences. For example, Mohamed Latrèche publicly threatened Liliane many times, in a demonstration on Place Kléber, the main square of Strasbourg. But from this moment, no witness could say that such shouts as “Mort aux Juifs” were heard in the streets of Strasbourg. Troops of followers of Latrèche are apparently disciplined. At least two national TV channels sent crews to Strasbourg, to make reportages on anti-Semitism and wanted to find other witnesses of this demonstration. I tried to find some and I must say, with no results. The Licra (the League against Racism and AntiSemitism) lodged a claim against Latrèche, relying on the article of Le Monde. The judge wanted more witnesses than Liliane and finally, the claim was not admissible. No trial took place. I detailed this story, among many others, not to tell you that nothing happened in France, and that the description of anti-Semitism was exaggerated, but to show the difficulty to really wage the level of hatred towards Jews and its expression. In many cases, many affairs that

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shaked France, what really happened could not be described in a precise way. (It is due to the level of tension, of passion, of ideology). Let me give you a second brief story. Last April, a famous Parisian attorney, Guillaume Weill-Raynal, published a book entitled : “Counter-enquiry on the “new anti-Semitism” in France1”. (quotation marks). The Weill-Raynals are an old Israelite family, the grand father was a noted historian. In France, you always say that the double name is the Republican mark of aristocracy. Mr Weill-Raynal started his work writing that he totally disagrees with the position on anti-Semitism that can be read in the Jewish press and on Jewish Internet sites, position stated by his twin brother, Clément Weill-Raynal, who is a journalist for France 3, the third national public television channel. Clément Weill-Raynal has written for the last five years numerous articles denouncing anti-Semitism in France, the passivity of the Government, the complicity of the French diplomacy to Arab terrorists. Clément Weill-Raynal, who writes for example on the Internet site of the CRIF (Umbrella political organizations of Jewish association in France), describes the situation in France as being close to catastrophe, that the wave of anti-Semitism is sweeping across France, in all social milieus and that Jews of France should prepare to defend themselves alone. On the opposite, his twin brother Guillaume, who is more a leftist, wrote in his little book , that everything was exaggerated by the Jewish leaders, that a real paranoia swept the Jews. He even tried to give an explanation of this exaggeration, saying that the community, its political agenda and its strictly Zionist stance were shaped in the postwar period by Ashkenazi, non religious Jews, and that the people who now belong to the community are second generation Sefardis, with a lot of them going back to a stricter religious practice. The gap between the structures and the communal politics on one side, and the expectation of this new public, created an unease that was expressed by this paranoia. Guillaume Weill-Raynal went as far as writing that one should understand the 1

Guillaume Weill-Raynal, Une haine imaginaire ? Contre-enquête sur le ‘nouvel antisémitisme’, Paris, Armand Colin, 2005.

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young Muslims who attacked the synagogue in France : as meetings in favour of Israël are organized in the synagogues, which turns the holy places into political ones (and no more religious), the young Muslims attackers protest against the Israeli policy towards the Palestinian and that they are not antisemites. The story of the two brothers is interesting, as it shows the profound gap within Jews in general and in the interpretation of the events of the past five years. On Internet sites, you could read nightmare scenarios and a description of a cultural war between Jews, Israël and America on one side, the French institutions and the Arab world considered as anti-Semitic as a whole, on the other side. In the mean time, you had some Jews who considered themselves as more distant from the organized community, and that really underestimated the importance and the number of the incidents. An ideological war went on, punctuated by a serie of “affairs”, scandals, …. Preparing this presentation, I tried to draw the list of them, but they rapidly appeared to be to numerous. Some remained within the Jewish community, circulating on Internet sites, others appeared on the general press. Let me mention a few of them : - the dinner of the Crif, when Roger Cukierman strongly criticized what he called an alliance between leftist, Islam and fascists, in December 2001 ; the Boniface case ; the book of Esther Benbassa “Do Jews have a future ?”; the call for boycott of Israeli Universities, the lycée Molière case ; the Dieudonné scandal ; etc. Following the outbreak of the second Intifada, September 11, and the War in Irak, a strong polarization within the French society appeared and the Jews – and the Jewish institutions – felt in the middle of a violent stream. What happened is that the Jews felt on the side of the minority, which created a sense of serious unease. They felt, rightly or not, isolated among their fellow citizens and it happened to be unbearable for them, especially after ten years of scandals over France Vichy’s past and responsibility in the Holocaust, which made the memory of the Shoah even more present in the French society. How all this can be explained ?

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II A wave of anti-Zionism

With the outbreak of the Second Intifada, France was swept by a wave of anti-Zionism. It is true that anti-Zionism is not always easy to define, to tell from criticism of the Israeli policy towards Palestinian. In fact, criticism against Israel became so strong that it lead to believe that the very existence of the Jewish State should not be legitimate. In my view, this wave of anti-Zionism was more serious than the wave of anti-Semitism. Traditional French criticism of the Israeli Occupation and of the Israeli policy became even stronger, and invaded some more moderate places and medias. For example, a major turn happened within the Socialist Party, whom activists became highly critical of Israel. Few socialist political leaders dared to assess their link and attention to Israel. After the shock of April 21, 2002, when Le Pen won the first round of the presidential election, the socialist party gained many new members, young people who wanted to be more implicated into the French political life. They proved to be more leftist than the leadership of the party, including in their vision on the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. This turn is interesting in itself as the Socialist Party was historically the only pro-Israel, pro-Zionist French party, since the SFIO in the 1930’s. The Communist party experienced also a rise of interest in favor of the Palestinian. Marie-Georges Buffet, the leader could make this strange statement : “In the central comity of the party, we do not speak of anything else”. It was for sure in April 2002, the time of the Israeli operation in Jenin, the period of time with the peak of hostility towards the Sharon policy and Israel (Tsahal entered in Jenine on April 3). Within the Green party, strong debates occurred and the party almost split on this question, when demonstrations against the War in Irak jointly condemned Bush and Sharon in a very assertive way. Aurélie Filipetti, a young member of the Green Party,

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elected in Paris and the spokeperson in Paris, created an outrage. On March 22, 2003, a demonstration took place in Paris, against the War in Irak and in the parade, two young members of the Hashomer Hatzaïr, a socialist Zionist movement, were attacked. Filipetti protested and suggested that the position of the Green Party was biased and that they should demonstrate not only with Palestinian flags, but also with Israeli ones.

The French public opinion strongly followed this trend. In numerous opinion polls, one could see that the image of Israel was very negative. Broadly speaking, two-thirds of the French had negative view on this country, when the same polls show that only one third of American share the same opinion. As French Jews are for most of them very close to Israel, have family members there, travel often to this country, they felt isolated towards the mainstream opinion in France. More generally speaking, a wage of arguments coming from a very leftist background could dominate the French public debates. Edwy Plenel, the chief editor of Le Monde, himself a former trotskyist, could speak of a “trotskysme culturel”. On April 21, 2002, on the first round of the presidential elections, the three trotskyists candidates won almost 10,5% of the votes (exactly 10,44%). In France, the anti-Globalization movement, with its strong support to the Palestinian cause, was extremely successful. An association like ATTAC (for the Tobin tax on capital transfers) became rapidly one of the most important political movement in the country, with the financial support both of the right, that wanted to weaken the socialist party, and of the left, who wanted to follow this new political trend. The Monde diplomatique became the most successful magazine, a success comparable only to the People magazines. It sells 400 000 copies a month in its French version and is published in 19 languages, including Farsi. Israeli post-zionist-Zionist, anti-Zionist historians were given much space in French news and columns (strange effect, see the Dieudonné affairs quoting the book of Idith Zertal).

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A trotzkyist movment, the CAPJO, a pro-palestinian, anti-Zionist movement, with many Jews as leaders, proved quite successful in appearing in the media. It created a Pro-Palestinian political party for the Regional elections, a première in the French political life, etc. Just to finish this short description of the comeback of leftist themes in the French political life, let me mention an opinion poll published last month. According to it the majority of French, exactly 51%, declare to be against capitalism.

As Jewish organizations continued to stand for Israel, if not for Sharon, they were submitted to sharf criticism, accused of abandoning the values of the Republic, the universalistic view, to fight only for their “community” (communauté). The Crif was criticized, mostly in Op-Eds published for example in Le Monde and Libération, also a first time in France. This lead many Jews to directly link the anti-Zionist stances to the rise of anti-Semitic acts in France, to make an direct identification of anti-Zionism, critic of Israel, and anti-Semitism. They agreed with the theses of the Philosopher Pierre-André Taggieff, who wrote a little book “The new Judeophobia”, coining a new term. His book was widely read in the Jewish community, together with the book of Emmanuel Brenner “Lost Territories of the Republic”, that describes a catastrophic situation within the high schools of banlieues. The Crif distributed this book at its annual dinner in 2001. Within the moderate left, it became common to condemn Zionism as a whole, to present oneself as “anti-zionist” and the word “communautariste” became almost an insult. The problem of the Jewish community was also that it has difficulty to renew its leadership. In the consistory, the statute date back to Napoleon. Jews and Jewish organizations became extremely sensitive, for reasons one can understand, and kept records of threats against their integrity and their position within the French society. As far as I know, this situation did not endanger the success of Jews in France, who are, for their majority, doing very well. There is

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no glass ceiling in France for Jews and the second generation of Sefardi immigrants are climbing the social scale at a fast pace.

This attention to any threats to their equality, to their economic success and to their citizenship was struck by the call for boycott of the intellectual relations between France and Israel, that happened in May and June 2002 and that was voted, under the influence of the CAPJO, in Jussieu. This boycott was condemned by the French Government, especially by the Minister of Education, and by Edith Cresson, the former socialist Prime Minister and European Commissioner, who had been active in negotiating the agreement on academic and technological exchanges between Israel and the European Union. As far as I know, this call for boycott did not had any consequences. Exchanges of researchers was at a low tide anyway, because of terror attacks in Israel, that frightened the French scholars.

In the meantime, a process of political radicalisation occurred also among some Jews. A important minority of them lined up with the religious Zionist right of Israel, officially preparing Alyah and supporting the colonization. In my opinion, the majority of Jews in France are for a negotiated peace process, as are the majority of Israeli, but the rightists Jewish leaders were more vocal. Started to circulated on the Internet articles published in French on the site Haroutz 7 (there is also an English version). Haroutz 7 is published in the occupied territories, in the colony of Bet El, one of the most radical religious settlement. It was a radio channel, forbidden by the Israeli Government for being to close to the Kahanist movement. It is not sure that all French Jews who read this Internet site realize the political implication of it.

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Temptation of an alliance with the National Front, for a handful of Jewish leaders. Like Fini in Italy. Right alliance, not the left. Scandal on the Jewish vote for Le Pen in April 2002, a very tense period.

This indirect importation of the Israeli politic, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was one of the great fear of the French Governement, who firmly wanted to opposed it. This political situation in France, among the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, also had some implications in foreign policy.

III Implications in foreign policy

What happened in France was closely looked at in other European countries. First of all, because there was a fear that this phenomenon could spread across the borders. The rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism was not limited to France, though it had the greater extension in this country. Same criticism on Israel and the Jewish community could be heard and read in newspapers mostly in Belgium, Italy and Spain. But, because of its history, of its political decision to oppose the United States and the war in Irak, and because the French Jewish community and the French Muslim community are from far the biggest in Europe, France became a central point of attention. But this situation mostly endangered the bilateral relation between France and Israel. We know that this relation has been difficult since 1967, with periods of calm and many periods of tension, that this relation is highly sensitive. It can be said that the relation between France and Israel reached a low point between 2001 and 2005. In Israel itself, the public opinion severely condemned France and watched the rise of anti-Semitism. Defiance is stronger now

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in Israel against France than against Germany. The attitude of the Quai d’Orsay was severely condemned and Israel found itself opposed to France in most of the critical points, from the position towards Muslims, anti-Semitism, to the opposition to the United States and the invasion of Irak. A serie of incidents occurred, for example the stance of Bernard, the French Ambassador in London, in a private dinner, defining Israel as a “little shity county”, to the quotation of Dominique de Villepin, when he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, saying that the creation of the State of Israel was an error in history. This quotation was reported by JeanMarie Colombani in his book “Tous Américains ? Le monde après le 11 septembre 2001” “All American ? The world after September 11, 2001 » ( a book published in 2002). Of course, this quotation was never confirmed by the Quai d’Orsay. The tension between France and Israel reached a peak when Sharon used the rise of antiSemitic problems in France to accuse Chirac and France in general and to call French Jews to make an urgent alyah. Bonuses were promised to immigrants, etc. An exchange of declarations followed, very bitter, till a reconciliation occurred last July, when Sharon was welcomed in France as a political hero. On this matter, the situation is apparently moving very fast, with the announcement of the creation of a major franco-israeli foundation to improve relations in many fields. With the declaration of Sharon, Alyah became the focus of the French press and the number of Jews leaving France for Israel became at stake. In a normal year, about 2000 Jews make alyah from France. The number of the ones who do not succeed and come back is less certain, up to one third.

Last consequence in the diplomatic field, of course, the bilateral relation with the United States. In America, France was widely condemned as anti-Semitic, a follower of the Vichy regime, as if nothing had changed since 1940, or even since the Dreyfus affair. Harsh articles

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were written in the Jewish press, accusing France of being by nature against the Jews, a country that refuses to recognize its responsibility in the Holocaust (which Jacques Chirac officially did after years of polemics on July, 16, 1995 on the site of the Vel’ d’Hiv’). The idea was that France wanted to destroy the State of Israel, wanted to work and negotiate only with Arab countries (the famous politique arabe du Quai d’Orsay) etc. You can read the article in Commentary on the Quai d’Orsay since the end of the 19th Century. David, PryceJones, « Jews, Arabs, and French Diplomacy. A Special Report », Commentary, May 2005, pp. 27-45.

The French diplomacy had to react. It was not immediate. The first move was to make closer contacts with American Jewish Organizations, especially with the Jewish American Congress and the Jewish American Comity. These links already existed but they were institutionalized. Second, President Chirac travelled to New York in September 2003, to attend the general meeting of the United Nations and met Jewish leaders and organizations. He travelled with French Jewish leaders. This policy proved somehow successful as criticism against France was downplayed. In January 2004, Jacques Chirac appointed Nicole Guedj, a Parisian lawyer, Secretary of State for the rights of victims, in a newly created function. Nicole Guedj is a Jew, active in the community as a an administrator of the French Consistory. She became the only Jewish member of the cabinet. This move was symbolic, in order to show French Jews that they will not be left behind the French politics. France became also active in the major conference on anti-Semitism organized by the OSCE, in Vienna, Berlin and then Paris (on racial prejudice in the cybersphere).

Rise of anti-Semitism had some political implications in the French internal and foreign policy, although these implications did not represent a major turn in French politics. As the

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situation is calming down, as the relations between France and Israel, and also between France and the United States, are not as tense as they were only a few months ago, it is time to consider what really happened and try to analyse the politics of anti-Semitism in France; For all these reasons, this conference is more than welcome and I would like to thank the organizers for their kind invitation.

Conclusion : Something has to be rebuilt in France

Jews are doing well in France, as a matter of fact. A new generation of Jewish writers is appearing on the literary scene. Some of their prose deals directly with anti-Semitism and the great fear of French Jews and raise the question of the position of Jews in French society. One can mention the books of Michael Sebban, who stages a young religious philosophy teacher in a suburban high school, in Seine-Saint-Denis. I would like to mention the book of Nathalie Azoulai, published two or three weeks ago only, under the title : “Les Manifestations”, the street demonstrations. With the tune of the intimacy, using the I, Nathalie Azoulai describes the story, the coming of age, of three young Parisians who studied in the same high school in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. They are born around 1965, one is a Sefardi, Anne, one an Ashkenazi, Emmanuel, and one a catholic, Virginie. They were the best friends of the world, and they demonstrated against racism in many occasions. They are this generation coming of age under François Mitterrand and fought for the same anti-Racist causes and for the rights of immigrants. They demonstrated in 1986 against the Devaquet laws, they demonstrated together in 1990, when the Carpentras cemetery was desecrated. After 2000, their friendship fell apart, under the new circumstances, the rise of anti-Semitism, etc. The symbol of this was again the demonstrations : on April 7, 2002, when Anne and Emmanuel demonstrated with

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the Jewish community, without Virginie ; and the demonstrations against Le Pen, in April and May 2002, where Virginie demonstrated without her friends. I can tell you that there is no happy end in this novel, that finally the three friends do not meet again to demonstrate after Anne’s son is attacked by young Muslims. This novel , for sure, tells us that something has to be rebuilt in France.

I thank you for your attention.

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