French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Wednesday evening welcomed the “25%” drop in the number of anti-Semitic acts registered in France in the first half of the year compared to the first six months of last year.
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At the inauguration of a synagogue in Levallois-Perret, a Paris suburb, the interior minister confirmed that from January to June “227 anti-Semitic acts” had been committed, ie “a 25% decrease for the first time”. ’ compared to the same period last year (298).
He specified that “50% of these physical acts were of an anti-Semitic nature”.
Gérald Darmanin believed that “there is no distinction between anti-Semitic acts and hatred of Israel”. “We have to say it and say it again,” stressed the minister, who received warm applause.
“The same people who denounce Israel and the same people who denounce the mistakes – and I quote – of the Jews are the same people who denounce the police. Sometimes extremes come together,” agreed Mr. Darmanin.
The Minister of the Interior also emphasized “the great fear of the Jews in France, who see physical, not just cultural, fear of the other (…) because we have allowed too much”.
Gérald Darmanin, who is responsible for cults by virtue of his functions, also argued that “French secularism is not the negation of religions” and “is not neutrality in public space”. “We can always wear yarmulkes on the streets of France,” he added, promising that no “republican law would prohibit it.”
“There is no secularism without freedom of religion and no freedom of religion without a place of worship,” the minister continued, but “when religious freedom is almost absolute, it is not absolute to the point of ‘destroying the worship of others.’ .
The inauguration of a synagogue in Levallois comes the day after the minister called on prefects and police and gendarmerie officials to “increase vigilance” around Jewish places of worship at the time when several religious holidays begin.
According to the Interior Ministry, a total of “1,659 anti-religious acts” were registered in France for 2021, i.e. 857 anti-Christian, 589 anti-Semitic and 213 anti-Muslim acts.