President Emmanuel Macron has said that the State will continue to fight anti-Semitism, which has been on the rise since the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October. He was speaking at a yearly dinner marking the 80th year anniversary of the creation of the Council of Jewish Institutions of France (Crif).
"Every time the slightest trace of anti-Semitism reappears, we will treat it as uncompromisingly as my predecessors," Macron said on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Crif at the Palais Elysée on Monday evening.
In his address, the president of Crif, Yonathan Arfi, said that the number of anti-Semitic acts have "multiplied since the abyss of 7 October and our republican model has been attacked like never before in 80 years".
According to a Crif report, attacks have increased in 2023 to 1,676 compared to 436 in 2022.
Arfi also demanded that France show "the same solidarity and the same confidence in Israeli democracy in the face of terrorism" as it does for Ukraine in the face of Russia.
Macron responded by saying that "loving Israel, wanting its security, does not mean subscribing to all the choices of a democratic government of the day.
"We must assume, as democracies allow, to have disagreements," he added in reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for respect for "humanitarian law, international law" in Gaza.
Hamas's attack on 7 October resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to a tally by French news agency AFP based on Israeli official figures.
Parliamentary inquiry
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.
Israel has responded with a relentless offensive against Hamas that Gaza's health ministry says has killed at least 31,726 people, most of them women and children.
Interviewed by France Info public radio on Tuesday, Arfi said "the plight of the civilian populations touches me and matters a lot to me, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli".
But he stressed that the responsibility of the situation in Gaza remained in the hands of Hamas.
"All it would take is for Hamas to release the hostages tomorrow morning and this war will end instantly," he said.
With regards to anti-Semitic acts in France, he underlined the importance of a Crif request for a parliamentary commission of inquiry into anti-Semitism in higher education.
This comes just a week after a Jewish student was blocked from entering an amphitheatre at Sciences-Po university in Paris where pro-Palestinian students were protesting against the war in Gaza.
The incident sparked condemnation at the highest level of government, with Macron telling a cabinet meeting last Wednesday that the remarks heard against the Jewish student were "unspeakable and perfectly intolerable".
The elite establishment has opened its own inquiry and was taking legal action.
