Tens of thousands of people took part in a march in Paris on Sunday “for the republic, against anti-Semitism”, AFP reported, following an explosion in anti-Jewish acts in France since the Hamas massacres in Israel on October 7 and the military that followed Reaction in Gaza.
• Also read: The presence of the extreme right at the big march against anti-Semitism in Paris is irritating
“A France that our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid of is not France.” In a country with the largest Jewish community in Europe (around 500,000 people), head of state Emmanuel Macron set the tone for this march, which was called by the Presidents of the National Assembly and of the Senate, Yaël Braun -Pivet and Gérard Larcher.
If he doesn’t attend, the French president said Saturday he would be there “in spirit.”
“For the Republic, against anti-Semitism”: Under this banner, the presidents of the two chambers, together with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, whose Jewish father was deported, set out on the path that connects the assembly with the Senate – Presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy as well former heads of government.
AFP
“Controversies must not be allowed to mar this unprecedented initiative,” declared Yaël Braun-Pivet, pointing in particular to the presence of leaders of far-right parties, including Marine Le Pen of the Rassemblement National (RN) and Eric Zemmour of Reconquête.
“We are exactly where we need to be,” replied Marine Le Pen. A group of activists from the left-wing Jewish organization Golem tried to oppose his participation, but this was quickly stopped by the police.
“I didn’t think that one day I would have to demonstrate against anti-Semitism,” Johanna, 46, a medical secretary in the Paris region, told AFP.
According to authorities, there has been an explosion of anti-Semitic attacks in France since the start of the Israel-Hamas war – more than 1,000, a record.
A section of the French radical left announced that it would boycott the event due to the presence of the far right.
On the eve of the march, Emmanuel Macron decried “the unbearable resurgence of unbridled anti-Semitism” in a letter to the French published by the daily Le Parisien.
AFP
Faced with a “hideous” phenomenon, he called for the unity of France “behind its values, its universalism.”
But the marches and demonstrations in the provinces – where more than 70 rallies have been announced – are far from reflecting national unity, as their preparation has led to a bitter political battle over the presence of the far right.
The participation of Marine Le Pen’s RN, “a political party founded by the heirs of Vichy,” was “not unity, but indecency,” judged government spokesman Olivier Véran, referring to Marshal Pétain’s collaboration regime with the Nazis.
“Is it so difficult to take a break from the issue that should bring us together?” replied the leader of the RN MPs, Marine Le Pen.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France insoumise (LFI, radical left), accused of ambivalence towards anti-Semitism, is not taking part in the demonstration due to the presence of the RN, although Insoumis took part in other initiatives on Sunday.
This is the case, for example, in Strasbourg (East), where some of its elected officials marched with several thousand people. At further meetings in the provinces in the morning, 3,000 people came together in Lyon and the same number in Nice.
In the capital, a wreath-laying ceremony organized by LFI near the former Vel d’Hiv – a meeting point for Jews arrested by French police before their deportation in 1942 – was disrupted by people holding signs saying “Grab them.” “Not remembering” swung. and shout “collaborators”.
AFP
The work of “a dozen enthusiastic people,” reacted the head of the LFI MPs, Mathilde Panot.
According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, “more than 3,000 police and gendarmes” as well as “mobilized elite units” are deployed in the capital.
The left-wing parties Europa Ecologie-Les Verts, Socialist Party and Communist Party as well as associations for the defense of human rights and youth organizations are marching behind a common banner “against anti-Semitism and all inciters of hatred and racism” to physically isolate the extreme right.
Many representatives of different religions are also expected, but in a country that hosts one of the largest Muslim communities in Europe, several Muslim leaders or bodies have rejected the call, regretting that it contains “not a word about Islamophobia”, pointing out that ” Confusions” between Islam and anti-Semitism.