On France and antisemitism - Britta Sandberg in Der Spiegel:

‘In the building where Yonathan Arfi lives in the heart of Paris, a broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed policeman – doing his best to remain as inconspicuous as possible – is hanging around in front of the elevators. He's a bodyguard, there to provide protection to Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF). Arfi has long been considered to be at risk. But the security situation has become even more sensitive following the October 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel.’

(…)

‘"It's the small gestures that are dangerous," says Arfi. "The anti-Semites have forced us to put up walls, but it's up to us to transcend them." Arfi and his wife don't want to hide. Their real names are still on their mailbox. And they have not removed the mezuzah, the traditional parchment roles, from their apartment door, as so many others have done. Almost defiantly, Arfi is trying to hold onto every little bit of normalcy.
He doesn't want to be so afraid that he must hide his Jewish identity.
Because he's scared that Jews in France might become invisible. "The real danger is that Judaism will no longer have a place in public life if we all hide every trace of our Jewish identity," he says. "That would be a symbolic, an appalling victory for all anti-Semites."’

(…)

‘French Jews, says philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, the son of a Holocaust survivor, are realizing at the moment that they are no longer as important as they once were – also from a numerical perspective. "They are 10 times less numerous than Muslims in France. Their sense is: Given the globalization of hatred against them, they don't even carry weight here anymore."
Around 6 million Muslims live in France, more than in any other European country aside from Turkey. That has driven the polarization of society since October. You are either for or against Israel, for or against Hamas. For or against the left-wing extremist politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has refused to call Hamas terror by its name. Mélenchon also disparaged participants in the grand march against anti-Semitism by saying they endorsed the massacre of the civilian population of Gaza.’

(…)

‘Since the Hamas slaughter, during which 1,200 Israelis were killed, most of them Jewish Israelis, there have been over 1,500 anti-Semitic incidents in France along with 571 arrests for anti-Semitic statements or acts. In front of a shop in the 17th Arrondissement in Paris, someone scrawled on the sidewalk "Interdit aux juifs," or "No Jews Allowed." In Lyon, a man stabbed a Jewish woman at the door to her apartment. Swastikas have begun appearing in numerous cities.’

(…)

‘Arfi says that ever since anti-Semitic offenses began being recorded in France, there has never been such a significant wave of violence. "Since October 7, we have seen more than twice as many incidents as in all of 2022. That means from a purely numerical standpoint, more than two years of ant-Semitism have been packed into just four weeks."
No matter what happens next, he says: "This date will be a turning point of a kind we haven't seen since World War II. From now on, there will be a before and an after October 7."
On Sunday a week ago, 182,000 people across France demonstrated against anti-Semitism and in favor of the republic's values, more than 100,000 of them in Paris. Yonathan Arfi marched along in the first row. Right next to him, former President Hollande and Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne held a banner reading: "For the republic and against anti-Semitism." For one day, France's Jews felt a little less alone. "A France that Says No" and "United for the Republic" read the next day's headlines.’

(…)

‘Anti-Semitism is hardly a new phenomenon in France; it has been around for decades. For much of that time, though, it came primarily from the extreme right wing. But now, the extreme left is deliberately engaging in anti-Semitism under the leadership of La France Insoumise leader Mélenchon. "It is the product of a disgusting calculus: Mélenchon wants to sow chaos, shake the foundations of the republic and capture the support of the Muslim electorate," says Stasi, the LICRA president.’

(…)

‘Since the beginning of the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising, in September 2000, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in France has increased massively – from around 80 registered offenses in 1998 and 1999 to almost 750 in the year 2000 alone. Six years later, a group of young men in a Paris suburb tortured the 23-year-old Jew Ilan Halimi to death. The leader of the group became the symbolic representative of a new form of anti-Semitism that has primarily found followers among young Muslims in the banlieues and in the jihadist milieu. The result has been targeted attacks on Jews, such as on a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 and on the Jewish supermarket Hyper Cacher in Paris in 2015.’

(…)

‘Hanging in the Arfi family's living room are two posters about the Dreyfus Affair, the political and criminal justice scandal during which the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted in 1894 of treason on the strength of questionable evidence. One poster reads: "Dreyfus Is a Traitor." The other: "Dreyfus Is Innocent." Arfi has also hung up a photo of his great uncle Alfred Nakache, the famous French swimmer who survived Auschwitz, but who lost his wife and daughter in the death camp.
"There have always been two Frances," says Arfi. "A republican, universalist country that has understood how poisonous anti-Semitism is for the republic. And a country that succumbs to populism."
The right France has always emerged victorious, he says. And he hopes the same will be true this time around. He then quotes Jean-Paul Sartre: "Anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem, it is our problem."’

Read the article here.

With politicians like Jean-Luc Mélenchon the left doesn’t need enemies anymore. Since he refused to advise his voters to vote for Macron against Le Pen you could know that the true nature of the progressive ideals of Mélenchon was pure nihilism, and I don’t use that word easily, not in a negative way anyhow.

The anti-Semitic tradition in France has always been severe, more severe in the 19th century than in Germany I would say, the old-fashioned catholic anti-Semitism might have become old-fashioned islamic anti-Semitism, at least in France. But that’s too convenient for the extreme right.

The question is also, and this goes for all minorities, how visible should your identity be?