France 2003-4

 

France had one of the highest levels of antisemitic activity in 2003, despite a slight decline in number of incidents from the previous year. However, the number of violent acts grew from 185 in 2002 to 233 in 2003. Most notable was the increase in physical attacks on individuals in the street and on school children. The number of incidents reported during the first half of 2004 was higher than the total number for the entire year 2003. Several demonstrations took place in early 2004 in support of the right of Muslim women to attend public schools wearing the hijab. Members of leftist organizations participated in these events, which were organized by Islamist groups.

 

The Jewish Community

The French Jewish community, numbering about 575,000 out of a total population of 58,520 million (1999 census), is the largest in Europe. The greatest concentration is in the Paris area (300–350,000), followed by Marseille (80,000), Lyon (30,000), Nice and Toulouse (20,000 each). Strasbourg, where 12,000 Jews live, is a major religious and cultural center. In comparison, the foreign population (i.e., holding foreign nationality) of the country numbers 4.3 million, while French citizens of foreign origin number 19.7 million (official census figures), representing 7.4 percent of the total population, a proportion that has remained unchanged since 1975. The number of Muslims, estimated at somewhere between 3.7 and 6 million, could represent about 10 percent of the population.

The three main organizations of French Jewry are the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF), the Consistoire Central and the Fonds Social Juif Unifié (FSJU). There has been a dramatic revitalization of communal life since the early 1980s, which is reflected in the large number of Jewish private schools (about 100, attended by 30 percent of Jewish schoolchildren, or some 30,000 pupils) and synagogues (over 150 in the Paris area). Since the beginning of the antisemitic wave which began in autumn 2000, many families have transferred their children from state-run secular schools to private Jewish (mainly Orthodox) schools.

One thousand French Jews emigrated to Israel in 2001, 2,600 in 2002 and 2,400 in 2003. According to the Jewish Agency, there was a 25 percent increase in French immigration to Israel during the first half of 2004 over the year 2003.

On 15 March 2004, a law was promulgated which forbids the wearing of religious symbols (such as a large cross, the kippa and the Muslim hijab [headscarf]) in state schools and in the civil service. It came into effect in September 2004. 

 

Political parties and extra-parliamentary groups

The Far Left, the Greens and the Communist Party

The far left, the Green Party and some segments of the anti-globalization movement exhibit strong anti-Zionist and sometimes antisemitic prejudice, especially when they deny the right of the State of Israel to exist. However, the far left suffered a major setback in the March 2004 regional and the June 2004 European elections.  The Trotskyite   Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR; led by Olivier Besancenot) and Lutte Ouvrière (led by Arlette Laguiller), which ran on a common slate, polled only 2.89 percent of the vote and lost all their seats; the Trotskyite Parti des Travailleurs (led by Daniel Gluckstein) obtained 1.17 percent. In the first ballot of the regional election, the far left polled 4.95 percent and lost almost all their seats.  The Communist Party polled 6.79 percent in the Euro-election, which put a stop to its decline (the Party had numerous regional councilors elected on slates shared with the Socialist and Green parties). Orthodox communist and sometimes Stalinist groups, on the fringe of the Communist Party, such as the Pôle de Renaissance Communiste de France (publication: Initiative Communiste); Renaissance Communiste and Gauche Communiste, are particularly supportive of Palestinian hardliners and promote extreme anti-Zionism. The Green Party (led by Gilles Lemaire) polled 6.83 percent in the Euro-election and retains only one MEP.

The anti-Zionist rhetoric of the extra-parliamentary far left, such as the Trotskyite group Socialisme par en bas (Socialism from Below), an offshoot of the British Socialist Workers’ Party which is currently integrated into the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, is extremely aggressive. Socialisme par en bas has taken over the Agir contre la guerre movement, which was pivotal in organizing the pro-Palestinian and anti-war demonstrations in Paris (see ASW 2001/2, ASW 2002/3). Its central thesis, which is exposed in the writings of its theoretician Chris Harman is that fundamentalist Islam is neither a clerical nor a reactionary movement but an anti-imperialist one which should be supported both in the Middle East against Israel and in the West. This explains the presence of women wearing the hijab and even the abaya (combined head cover, veil and shawl) at their meetings.

The anti-globalization movement is widely known for the anti-US and pro-Palestinian stands of José Bové, former leader of the peasant union Confédération Paysanne. ATTAC (Association pour une Taxation des Transactions financières pour l'Aide aux Citoyens – Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Benefit of Citizenry), is a major anti-globalization force. Following the participation of Islamist fundamentalist Tariq Ramadan and some of his followers in the European Social Forum (ESF) which took place in Paris in November 2003, a major controversy arose within the ranks of the anti-globalization movement concerning the stand it should take in the debate over secular values, women wearing the hijab and the Middle East issue. The leadership of ATTAC remains firmly committed to secularism, rejects the alliance with fundamentalist Islam and, although it is highly critical of Israeli policies, keeps a moderate profile which recognizes Israel’s right to exist. Between December 2003 (when President Chirac announced he would submit a law on the hijab) and spring 2004 (when the law was passed), several demonstrations took place in France in support of the right of Muslim women to attend public schools wearing the hijab, a position rejected by the overwhelming majority of teachers, public opinion and mainstream political parties. In 2004 several high-ranking officials of the LCR, Green Party MP Noel Mamère, and even feminists from the far left took part in these demonstrations, alongside members of Présence Musulmane and the Collectif des Musulmans de France, the two pro-Ramadan organizations.

 

Extreme Right Parties

The Front National (FN), founded in 1973 and led by 76 year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen, had approximately 50,000 members after the presidential election of 2002. The party performed well in the regional elections, polling 14.7 percent, but the result was below the expectations of Le Pen, who was not authorized to lead the FN slate in Provence Côte d’Azur, because the Administrative Court there ruled that he was not a resident of the area. On the other hand, the FN fared poorly in the Euro-election, receiving a mere 9.81 percent of the vote, because it had to compete with the arch-conservative anti-EU Mouvement pour la France, led by former minister Philippe de Villiers, which won 7.92 percent of the vote.  For the first time in almost 20 years, it can be said that the continuous progress of FN has been halted, but the vote for the extreme right is still at a high level, especially in northern France, the south-east and the Riviera, and Alsace-Lorraine. Le Pen’s daughter Marine seems a likely successor to her father when he steps down (but Le Pen keeps saying he will run for president in 2007), and she now has her own think-tank, Génération Le Pen. Although she has been trying to change the party’s image by expunging antisemitic and fascist themes, which prevent FN from becoming a partner in any right-wing coalition, the FN remains an ultra-right movement, evidenced, for example, by Le Pen’s visit to Nick Griffin and the British National Party in April 2004, as well as the support he enjoys from the Belgian Vlaams Blok, Italy’s Alessandra Mussolini and Fiamma Tricolore Euro-MP Luca Romagnoli, and from Austrian FPÖ hardliner and Euro-MP Andreas Mölzer.

Several articles published in Israeli daily newspapers have tried to suggest that the FN was no longer a major threat to democracy and to the Jewish community in France. However, one should not forget that even the so-called modernists around Marine Le Pen have never repudiated their president’s statements about the Shoah being a subject for historical debate, or “a detail in the history of World War II.” Furthermore, some of Marine Le Pen’s top aides, such as Jean-François Touzé, come from a splinter group, Espace Nouveau, which, during the first Gulf War, expressed extremely anti-Zionist views, and evinced strong support for the secular Arab nationalism of the Iraqi Ba‘ath Party.

The Mouvement National Républicain (MNR), led by Bruno Mégret, is now only a shadow of its former self. It polled only 1.44 percent and lost all its regional councilors; in the Euro-election it obtained a mere 0.31 percent, after focusing its campaign almost exclusively on the slogan “No to Turkey in the EU.” Although Alsace d’abord, the regionalist, volkisch movement led by Stéphane Bourhis and Robert Spieler, received 9.42 percent of the vote in the Alsace regional election, it lost its representation due to the new electoral system which gives seats to those parties with a minimum of 10 percent of the vote.

 

Extra-parliamentary Extreme Right Groups and Activities

With the failure of MNR some rank-and-file members transferred to more activist groups with a hard-line racialist stand, such as Bloc Identitaire, led by Guillaume Luyt and Fabrice Robert. Membership of the latter is at best about 150. It publishes the quarterly Jeune Résistance. The group seems to be close to the mayor of Orange, Jacques Bompard, who launched a think-tank, Esprit Public, and aspires to succeed Le Pen. Christian Bouchet, former leader of the national revolutionary movements Nouvelle Résistance and Unité Radicale, leads a small group of about 40 (Réseau Radical) which runs the www.voxnr.com website and publishes the magazine Résistance!. The group promotes hard-line anti-Zionism and supports Palestinian jihad and Muslim fundamentalist groups.

Of special concern to the Jewish community is the neo-Nazi and skinhead movement, which was held responsible in 2003/4 for several desecrations of Jewish cemeteries (see below), most of which occurred in eastern France. The two main organized neo-Nazi/skinhead groups are the French Blood & Honour Division (Sang et Honneur), mostly concentrated in Alsace (where ‘white noise’ music concerts draw an audience of up to 1000 people, 90 percent of them from Germany), and the Charlemagne Hammerskins. They publish fanzines that are overtly antisemitic, deny the Holocaust and justify the use of violence against immigrants and people of foreign origin. One of those publications is called Charlemagne, referring to the French Waffen SS division by the same name; another, Genocide. The total number of neo-Nazis and skins does not exceed a few hundred, much fewer than in the 1990s. However, there appears to be a very young (13–16) generation of non-affiliated skins, who mix Satanic symbols with those of National Socialism, found in several cases of desecration.

It should be noted also that the number of anti-Muslim incidents has risen sharply in 2004, especially in Corsica and Alsace. The targets are mosques and prayer rooms, as well as Muslim-owned shops. On the island of Corsica, the perpetrators are members of a clandestine armed nationalist group named I Patrioti Corsi. Elsewhere, they seem to belong to the neo-Nazi/skinhead movement, which has also targeted Christian cemeteries and churches in eastern France.

  

Islamist Groups

The official body representing French Islam is the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (CFCM), which was elected in 2003. The two competing factions, which were obliged to compromise in order to run the CFCM, are the moderate followers of the Grande Mosquée de Paris, led by Dr. Dalil Boubakeur and supported by the Algerian government; and the orthodox Sunni of the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF; led by Laj Thami Breze), inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brothers and by the Egyptian-born Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the supreme religious authority of UOIF. Other important components of the Council are the Fédération Nationale des Musulmans de France (FNMF; led by Mohamed Bechari), which has close ties to Morocco; and the Comité de Coordination des Musulmans Turcs de France, which is under the authority of the Turkish state and follows a modernist way. The vast majority of voters chose the fundamentalist slates of UOIF/FNMF, which in some areas were open to members of the Turkish Mili Görus movement, and in other places, to militants of the pietist Tabligh movement originating in Pakistan.   

The main occasion for Islamist mobilization in 2004 was opposition to the law on religious symbols. Two distinct strategies were devised by the Islamist camp. The official UOIF stand was to protest the ban, while refusing to demonstrate, lest it infuriate the government which gave it the right to participate in, and control, the CFCM. Nevertheless, the UOIF was behind Operation Green Ribbon, a campaign against the ban organized by Malika Dif, the union’s main spokesperson on gender and family issues. Moreover, it is well-known that Dr Thomas Abdallah Milcent, the Strasbourg-based convert to Islam who set up a legal fund to offer assistance to pupils who refuse to remove their hijab in school, is a regular speaker at the movement’s annual convention (where the guest speaker in 2004 was the Egyptian preacher ‘Amr Khalid). The second strategy was to demonstrate in the streets and try to gain support from the ranks of leftist political parties: this was the choice of groups inspired by Tariq Ramadan, Présence Musulmane and Collectif des Musulmans de France. However, several fringe groups became very critical of the fact that both strategies avoided linking the hijab issue to Palestine and anti-Zionism, which supposedly would endow it with respectability and gain support among the non-Muslim population. These groups rallied twice, on 17 January and 14 February 2004, in Paris. The first demonstration was organized by the Strasbourg-based  Parti des Musulmans de France (PMF), led by a notorious antisemite with far right connections, Mohamed Ennacer Latrèche, who received his religious education in Syria and frequently travels to Damascus. Other speakers were former leader of the Belgium Islamist Parti Citoyenneté Prospérité, Jean-François Bastin; and the Paris-based Shi‘i imam Salaeddin Fadlallah, a nephew of Hizballah’s Lebanese religious leader Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah. Following Latrèche’s outspokenly antisemitic speeches at this event, he was indicted for incitement to racial hatred.

The 14 February demonstration, attended by about 500, was arranged by Mouvement Justice et Dignité and the Ligue Internationale pour la Défense de l’Islam et des Musulmans (LIDIM), a one-man movement founded by an Iraqi Jew (known as Makhlouq), who converted to Islam and regularly writes articles for two popular Islamic websites, www.saphirnet.info and www.islamiya.info.

In the Paris and Lyon areas, there is a growing Salafi movement, inspired by the Saudi ‘ulama‘ (Muslim scholars). It should be noted that, according to the French Salafi website, www.darwa.com, any French student who wishes to study at the Islamic universities of Medina and Mecca needs to produce recommendations from two French mosques or Islamic associations. The Salafi movement is gaining ground and, according to a report of the State Security Agency published in January 2004, they run 31 mosques in the Paris area, four more than the preceding year. The French Ministry of the Interior has now adopted a hard-line attitude against Salafi imams, and deported three of them: one Algerian from Brest; another Algerian from Vénissieux; and an Iraqi from Argenteuil who spoke at the Moroccan mosque there. Also, three imams belonging to the Turkish jihadist movement Hilafet Devleti (Kaplan’s Caliphate group, based in Germany), were either deported to Turkey or refused access to French territory. Some Salafi members switch to the Pakistani Tabligh, whose influence is also strong. In all the above-mentioned cases (except in Vénissieux), the imams were proponents of armed jihad against Israel and the US, and had used antisemitic slogans during their sermons.

Other branches of fundamentalist Islam in France are the association Foi et Pratique, led by a Tunisian, Muhammad Hamami, which is a splinter group of the Tabligh and the Lebanon-based Ahbachi movement, both illegal organizations which use virulently anti-Zionist rhetoric; and Takfir wal Hijra, which usually works with the Algerian Groupe Salafi pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC).

Within the ranks of the pro-Palestinian movement, a controversy erupted over the decision of CAPJPO (Coordination des Appels pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient) to run for the Euro-election in the Paris district, under the name Euro-Palestine. The list polled 1.83 percent, with peaks at 8–10 percent in some satellite cities such as Garges les Gonesse and Trappes. The Euro-Palestine campaign was masterminded by the leader of CAPJPO, Olivia Zemor. CAPJPO is a far left, extremely anti-Zionist movement, which is not Islamist (several people on the list, including Zemor, are Jews, and others Christians, including the notorious antisemite and music hall star Dieudonné – see below), but is sympathetic to the role of Hamas as an opponent to the “traitorous” Palestinian Authority. Layla Shahid, PA representative in France, vigorously condemned the initiative.

 

Antisemitic activity

France had one of the highest levels of antisemitic activity in 2003, despite, according to the SPCJ (Service de Protection de la Communuté Juive), a slight decline, from 517 manifestations of antisemitism of all types in 2002 to 503 in 2003. The SPCJ also reported a decrease in arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish institutions, down to 9 in 2003 from 29 in 2002, which may indicate that the French government is affording Jewish institutions better protection. However, the overall number of violent acts grew to 233 in 2003 (compared to 185 in 2002) of which physical aggression accounted for 100 cases (compared to 75 in 2002). Most notable was the increase in physical attacks on individuals in the street and on school children (see below). It should be noted that there was a considerable rise in incidents in the months March–April, with the beginning of the war in Iraq, and in October–November, following the suicide bombing in a Haifa restaurant and the Israeli retaliation in Syria.

On 9 June 2004, Government Spokesman Minister Jean-François Copé announced that the number of antisemitic incidents reported during the first half of 2004 was higher than the total number for the entire year 2003. According to the Ministry of Justice, whose statistics refer only to incidents filed as complaints with the police, 298 acts were recorded between 1 January and 20 August 2004, compared to 103 for the whole year 2003. Over 80 percent of these cases had not been solved. One hundred and sixty-two involved vandalism of private property and arson, 67 were assaults on Jewish persons, and 69 were cases of alleged press libel.

Out of the 35 cases solved, 29 have led to prosecution of the offenders, 41 of whom were under the age of 18. Although French legislation forbids mention of the ethnic origin of the offenders, an overwhelming majority of them were reportedly of North African (in some cases, Black African) origin, and almost none were connected to the Islamist movement.

As noted, there has been a marked increase since 2002 in harassment and attacks on Jewish children both in schools and in the street (see also ASW 2002/3). For example, a 10-year-old pupil at the prestigious Montaigne high school in Paris was forced to leave after his attackers, two children of Middle East origin, who were originally expelled from the school in December 2003, were re-instated following a court verdict. The Jewish pupil had been beaten and abused with slogans, such as “Dirty Jew” and “All the Jews are going to be killed,” from the beginning of the 2003 academic year. In another incident, which took place on 10 April 2003, a young Jewish girl was attacked by four people on her way to high school in Lille. They grabbed her from behind and hit her on the head shouting, “Hitler didn’t finish what he started, we’ll finish it and you’ll end your life in the crematorium… dirty whore … Jewish whore!”

            This trend continued into 2004. In January a 15-year-old Jewish boy was attacked by four youths of North African origin with a pair of ice skates; police apprehended the attackers. A dozen students, both Jews and North Africans, were attacked by fellow students at Clemenceau College in Lyon in March. The assailants shouted antisemitic slogans, spat on the group and threw stones and firecrackers at them.

Among serious attacks on Jewish adults in 2003, in October Rabbi Michel Serfaty was beaten and suffered head wounds while on his way to the synagogue in the city of Ris-Orangis near Paris. Two Muslim suspects were arrested. In early 2004 there were two violent assaults on teachers, mistakenly thought to be Jewish.

Arson attacks and vandalism of Jewish property also continued. Synagogues at Cachan and in several suburbs of Paris were damaged by such attacks. A Jewish secondary school in the Jewish suburb of Gagny was gutted by fire in November and a Jewish community center in Toulon, which includes a synagogue, was damaged by a fire bomb on 22 March 2004, possibly in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader Shaykh Ahmad Yasin. Several Jewish restaurants were also torched.

Jewish cemeteries were the targets of several acts of desecration in 2003/4, including at Marseille les Trois-Lucs (25 Nov. 2003), Herrlisheim (2 May 2004); Jewish graves at the military cemetery of Douaumont (6 May 2004) and Saverne (28 July 2004). In all cases, the perpetrators appeared to belong to the neo-Nazi scene.

Threats were received by a number of public institutions and individuals. In January 2004, an Israeli singer who performed for a charity organization chaired by the wife of President Jacques Chirac, was interrupted by a group of North Afrcian origin who shouted “Dirty Jewess. Death to the Jews. We’ll kill you.”

 

Attitudes to the holocaust and the nazi era

In February 2004 the Commission for the Indemnity of Victims of Despoliation (CIVS), asked by the French government in 1999 to examine Jewish claims for property seized under the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, recommended to Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin that France pay remaining compensation claims of $154 million to families of Jews looted during the Nazi occupation in World War II. A government report of 2000 found that 90 percent of the $1.5 billion of money and belongings taken from Jews had been paid. The recommendation was submitted to the government for final approval.

 

RESPONSES TO ANTISEMITISM AND RACISM

Official and Public Action

The Raffarin government has taken a number of initiatives to counter antisemitism. An inter-ministerial committee was set up by President Chirac on 17 November 2003 and had had seven meetings by June 2004. On 9 July 2004, Minister of the Interior, Dominique de Villepin, asked the novelist Jean-Christophe Rufin, to present the government, in September, with a set of measures aimed at fighting racism and antisemitism. The same month, the Minister for Social Affairs, Jean-Louis Borloo, asked Jean-Philippe Moinet, the secretary general of the High Council for Integration, to evaluate government policy on the subject of combating antisemitism and to submit proposals.

Some 2,000 persons participated in a rally held on 6 January 2003, addressed by Jewish student leaders and CRIF representatives, who protested a motion adopted on 16 December 2002 by the Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris 6) to suspend scientific cooperation with Israeli academic institutions and to stop EU grants to Israeli universities (see ASW 2002/3). Thousands demonstrated in Paris against antisemitism in May 2004 in a rally organized by SOS Racism, CRIF and other human rights groups, in response to the desecration of Jewish graves in Alsace and the graves of World War II Jewish soldiers in Verdun, as well as the increasing number of attacks on Jews and Jewish property.

            A conference of Catholics and Jews took place in Paris in March 2003 to discuss antisemitism in Europe and the place of religion in the proposed EU constitution. The conference was organized by the WJC and the North American Boards of Rabbis, with Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, head of the European Bishops Conference.

            At the annual CRIF dinner on 31 January 2004 Prime Minister Raffarin said parliament would ban anti-Jewish broadcasts on French television. A day earlier the Israeli government had asked the French government to block broadcast of the Lebanese Hizballah’s al-Manar TV station, which had broadcast a series based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and is available through satellite in France. As of mid-2004 the ban had not been instituted.

 

Legal Action

In 2003, 19 people were arrested and 5 search warrants were issued against non-identified individuals, in connection with antisemitic offenses. By late August 2004, 46 people had been arrested and prosecuted. It should be noted that the French Penal Code now takes into account an antisemitic motive as an aggravating factor in violent attacks. The reinforcement of French law was praised during a meeting of the OSCE in June 2003. However, in libel suits, such as the Dieudonné case (see below), some judges tend to regard antisemitic behavior/utterances as permissible in the framework of freedom of expression.

In June 2003, a French higher court fined Jean Claude Willem, communist mayor of Seclin, $2,300 for ordering school canteens to cease buying Israeli orange juice. He had been acquitted in a lower court in March, but a Lille Jewish community leader appealed.

            Also in June, an appeals court in Lyon upheld editor Jean Plantin’s 6-month prison sentence. He had published works doubting the scope of the Holocaust. He had received a 6-months suspended sentence in June 2000 and was ordered to cease his activities. However, the suspension was revoked after he continued them.

Neo-Nazi militant Jean Trouchaud (alias Florian Scheckler, a half-Jew) was sentenced to 2 years in prison for trying to blow himself up in a mosque in Paris. His contacts were militants of the FN and other neo-Nazis.

In 2004, a Paris court ruled that controversial comedian Dieudonné (Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala) was not antisemitic and was therefore not liable under French law for portraying an orthodox Jew giving the Hitler salute. The lawyer for the four Jewish organizations that charged racial discrimination said the ruling followed the letter of the law, but ignored the hurt the sketch had caused to French Jews. In January 2004 the mayor of Roanne had cancelled a Dieudonné show after he received a petition protesting antisemitic remarks made by the comedian in the past.