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Antisemitism in France

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Jews have been living in France since the Roman times as one of the oldest diasporas in Europe.

Overview

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As France became Christianized in the late antiquity, Christian antisemitism shaped the region's culture and led to over 1,500 years of persecutions of Jews in France.[1] Despite the end of the Holocaust in 1945, antisemitism is still common in 21st century France.[2]

Middle Ages

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Massacre of Jews in Metz (Holy Roman Empire) in the First Crusade.
A miniature from the Grandes Chroniques de France depicting the expulsion of Jews from France in 1182. This is a photograph of an exhibit at the Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv.

Under the Germanic Frankish Merovingian dynasty between the 5th and 8th century, Jews were banned from working as public servants.[1] A succession of ecumenical councils also banned Jews from socializing with Christians or observing the shabbat over the unfounded fear that Judaism (the Jewish ethnoreligion) would influence Christians.[1]

11th century

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Systematic persecutions of Jews intensified in the 11th century under the Capetian dynasty, when the King of France Robert the Pious attempted to kill all Jews who rejected Christian conversion.[1][3] Jews across the France were assaulted, tortured or burned at stakes.[1][3] The persecutions coincided with the destruction of the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in 1009, which was exploited by French Benedictine monk Rodulfus Glaber to spread rumors about Jewish "involvement" in the destruction.[4]

First Crusade

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When the First Crusade happened in 1096, Jews were massacred by the crusaders across the Kingdom of France.[3][4] The events were seen by some historians as a series of genocidal massacres.[5] The massacres all happened with Roman Catholic Church's tacit approval.[4][5]

Between the 1182 and 1394, at least 13 expulsions of Jews were ordered by the French monarchy,[6] during which dozens of Black Death-associated massacres of Jews happened.[7]

Modern period

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Between the 15th century and 18th century, antisemitism in France waxed and waned.[8] Voltaire (1694–1778), a famous French philosopher, held biases against Jews that contributed to the legitimization of antisemitism in Western academia.[9][10] One of the instances of Voltaire's antisemitism was his insertion of an insult into his Dictionnaire philosophique for Jewish readers:[9]

You are calculating animals; try to be thinking animals.

Despite this, he was regarded as the champion of Enlightenment by Western leftists.[10]

19th century

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Front page of Edouard Drumont's La Libre Parole (1893) with a caricature of a Jew grabbing the globe, implying their alleged desire to control the world. Caption: "Their Homeland".
"The Aryan breaks the chains of the Jew and the Freemason that held him captive", an 1897 satire by French journalist Augustin-Joseph Jacquet, later used by the Nazi puppet state Vichy France (1940–44) in its propaganda.
"I accuse...!" (J'accuse...!), open letter published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper L'Aurore by French writer Émile Zola, accusing the French president Félix Faure of anti-Semitism and unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, pointing out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence.

Antisemitism was widespread in 19th century France.[1] It was present across the political spectrum, with ancient stereotypes being phrased differently and perpetuated by their respective audience.[11] Jews were targeted for their otherness, observance of Judaism and alleged lack of loyalty or assimilation.[11]

Among the French far left, Jews were accused of being regressive agents of capitalism exploiting the French proletariat.[11] Among the French far right, Jews were accused of being subversive agents of communism undermining the traditional Catholic culture.[11] Meanwhile, both the far left and far right saw Jews as undesirable under French nationalism, which prioritized national unity over minority existence.[11][12]

1880s

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Between 1882 and 1885, three antisemitic publications existed in France: L'Anti-Juif, L'Anti-Sémitique, and Le Péril sociale.[1] In 1886, French politician Edouard Drumont published the 1,200-page tract La France juive ("Jewish France"), accusing Jews of masterminding capitalism, and calling for a race war between non-Jewish "Aryans" and Jewish "Semites". The tract was very popular in France and reprinted for 140 times within the first two years of publication.[9]

1890s

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The wave of antisemitism peaked in the deeply divisive Dreyfus affair in 1894, when Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jewish artillery officer, was falsely convicted of treason.[12] Dreyfus was not vindicated until 1906.[11][12]

20th century

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World War II

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A display at a March 1942 Vichy French exhibition alleging Jewish control of the USSR, SFIO and Western Allies.
French Jews forced to wear yellow stars in public, Paris, June 1942.

On 22 June 1940, France surrendered to Nazi Germany upon military defeat and was partitioned into the German-occupied zone, Italian-occupied zone and Vichy France – a rump state in southern France managed by pro-Nazi French collaborators.[13] Under Vichy France's leaders Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval, the Statut des Juifs ("Jewish Statute") – modelled after the Nazi German Nuremberg Laws – was passed between October 1940 and June 1941 to ban Jews from all jobs.[13]

Just as in Nazi Germany, such legal persecution escalated to the deportation of Jews to extermination camps,[13] one of the worst instances of which was the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup on 16–17 July 1942 voluntarily conducted by the Vichy French police.[13] In total, 77,000 (33%) Jews living in France were killed in extermination camps.[13][14]

Post-war period

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Flag of the neo-fascist L'Œuvre Française ("The French Work") movement, founded by antisemite Pierre Sidos in 1968 and banned in 2013.
Flag of the neo-fascist Les Nationalistes ("The Nationalists") founded in 2015 as a successor to the L'Œuvre Française.

Antisemitism in post-war France mainly took the form of Holocaust denial and radical anti-Zionism. Pierre Guillaume, an ultra-left anarcho-Marxist activist, published books denying the Holocaust as a "distraction from class struggle" that "played into the hands of Zionism and Stalinism".[15]

Influence

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Despite being left-wing, Guillaume's views were co-opted by the French far right,[15] sharing similar radical anti-Zionism, comparing the Holocaust to the Judean massacres of the Canaanites[15] or the Native American genocide,[16] and accusing Jews of exploiting the Holocaust to extort compensations from European countries.[17]

A number of influential French Holocaust deniers emerged, such as Claude Autant-Lara,[16] Maurice Bardèche,[17] Louis-Ferdinand Céline,[18] Paul Rassinier,[19] François Duprat,[20] Serge Thion,[21] Robert Faurisson,[22] Dieudonné M'bala M'bala[23] and Jean-François Jalkh.[24]

21st century

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Antisemitism is still common in 21st century France,[2] with Jews and synagogues regularly attacked.[2] A report by Tel Aviv University and the ADL found a spike in antisemitic incidents from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, 74% of which happened following 7 October 2023.[25] As per the Statista, 57.4% of 2023 antisemitic incidents happened in Paris.[26]

One of the most serious antisemitic incidents involved a 12-year-old Jewish girl being gang-raped by several boys hurling antisemitic insults and death threats.[27] Some French Jews reported the need to adopt fake names and wear keffiyehs to pretend as Muslims in order to minimize danger.[28]

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References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6
    • Grayzel, Solomon (1970). "The Beginnings of Exclusion". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 61 (1). University of Pennsylvania Press: 15–26. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
    • Benbassa, Esther (1999). The Jews of France: A History from Antiquity to the Present. Princeton University Press. JSTOR j.ctt7pft2. Retrieved December 25, 2024. Translated by M. B. DeBevoise
    • Camus, Jean-Yves (2011). "Beyond the Republican Model: Antisemitism in France". Politics and Resentment. pp. 275–305. doi:10.1163/9789004190474_010. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
    • Mohl, Allan (2011). "The Evolution of Anti-Semitism: Historical and Psychological Roots". The Journal of Psychohistory. 39 (2): 115–128. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
    • Altglas, Véronique (May 1, 2012). "Antisemitism in France: Past and Present". European Societies. 14 (2: Antisemitism, Racism and Islamophobia): 259–274. doi:10.1080/14616696.2012.676450. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 MacCalloch, Diarmaid (September 2, 2010). A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (1 ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN 9780141021898. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Bokenkotter, Thomas (1979). Concise History of the Catholic Church. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. ISBN 9780385130158. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1
  6. ↑ Lindemann, Albert S.; Levy, Richard S. (October 28, 2010). Antisemitism: A History. Oxford University Press. p. 75. ISBN 9780199235032. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
  7. ↑ Marshall, John (2006). John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture. The Johns Hopkins University. ISBN 9780521651141. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
  8. ↑ Hyman, Paula E. (1998). The Jews of Modern France. Vol. 1 (1 ed.). University of California Press. doi:10.2307/jj.2711646. JSTOR jj.2711646. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 Beller, Steven (October 22, 2015). Antisemitism: A Very Short Introduction (2 ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198724834.001.0001. ISBN 9780191792335. Retrieved December 25, 2024. Published in print: 29 October 2015. Print ISBN: 9780198724834.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4
  14. ↑
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Dans le mensuel "Globe" les propos antisémites de M. Claude Autant-Lara député européen". Le Monde. September 8, 1989. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Levy, Richard S.; Donahue, William Collins; Madigan, Kevin; Morse, Jonathan; Shevitz, Amy Hill; Stillman, Norman A.; Bell, Dean Phillip (2005). "Bardèche, Maurice (1909–1998)". Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781851094394. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  18. ↑ "Manuscripts of pro-Nazi French author rediscovered after 78 years missing". Euronews. May 4, 2022. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  19. ↑ Reid, Donald (March 29, 2022). "Holocaust denial, Le Vicaire, and the absent presence of Nadine Fresco and Paul Rassinier in Jorge Semprún's La Montagne blanche". French Cultural Studies. 33 (3). doi:10.1177/09571558221078450. Retrieved December 26, 2024. Open access
  20. ↑ Igounet, Valérie (May 8, 1998). "Holocaust denial is part of a strategy". Le Monde diplomatique. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  21. ↑ Berman, Paul (April 26, 2018). "The Grand Theorist of Holocaust Denial, Robert Faurisson". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  22. ↑
  23. ↑ "Comic Dieudonne given jail sentence for anti-Semitism". BBC News. November 25, 2015. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  24. ↑ Saeed, Saim (April 27, 2017). "New National Front leader in Nazi gas chamber row". Politico. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  25. ↑ Neifakh, Veronica (November 14, 2024). "Antisemitism Exploding: 'Every Jew in France Faced With Prospect of Leaving Country'". The Media Line. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  26. ↑ "Anti-Semitic acts in French cities 2023". Statista. July 4, 2024. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  27. ↑
  28. ↑ Davidson, Colette (October 17, 2024). "Amid fresh wave of antisemitism, some French Jews resort to fake names". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
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