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Antisemitism in 21st-century France

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At the beginning of the 21st century, antisemitism in France rose sharply during the unrest of the Second Intifada in Israel and the Palestinian territories, as it did in other European nations. In addition, a significant proportion of the second-generation Muslim immigrant population in France began to identify with the Palestinian cause, with some also identifying with radical Islamism. In the early 2000s, a critical debate on the nature of antisemitism in France accompanied denunciation of it in relation to the situation in the Middle East and to Islam. Divisions developed among anti-racist groups. Since 2023, France has experienced a sharp increase in reported antisemitic incidents compared to previous years.

Alarmed by violence and verbal attacks, some French Jews began to emigrate to Israel. By early 2014, the number of French Jews making aliyah (emigrating to Israel) surpassed that of American Jews emigrating. At the same time, 70% of French Jews reported in surveys that they were concerned about insults or harassment, and 60% about physical aggression because of their ethnicity; both figures are much higher than shown in surveys of the European average. In accordance with this, a survey conducted in 2024 found that one in five young French people thinks it would be a good thing that Jews leave the country.

Background

At the turn of the 21st century, France had an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 Jews, most of them Sephardi Jews and of Maghrebi Jews. This is the second-largest population outside of Israel, and after that in the United States. In the early 21st century, most French Jews, like most Muslims in France, are of North African origin. In 2016, Paris had the largest population of Jews in France, followed by Marseille, which has 70,000.

Historically, numerous North African Arabs had lived and worked in France since before World War II. The Muslim community built the Grand Mosque of Paris in 1929. Its imam and rector, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, and numerous members helped protect Jews from deportation during the Holocaust. A quarter of the historic Ashkenazi Jewish population in France was murdered in the Holocaust of World War II. After the war, the French government passed laws to suppress antisemitic discrimination and actions and to protect Jews in the country.

Sociologists such as Nonna Mayer, Laurent Mucchielli, and others have said that antisemitic opinions have been in decline in France since the end of the Second World War, and that other forms of racism have been more widespread than antisemitism. Members of the French Jewish community criticized this conclusion.

In the 1950s and 1960s, many Sephardic Jews emigrated to France from countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, which had gained independence from colonial rule through extended warfare against France. The wars for independence left both sides with considerable bitterness, and Algeria was immersed in civil war for years after gaining independence. Jews left North Africa as relations in the area became more strained during the Six-Day War of 1967 between Israel, Egypt and other Arab forces. This increased tensions across the Arab world. Expressions of antisemitism were seen to rise during the Six-Day War and the French anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s and 1980s.

Following the electoral successes achieved by the extreme right-wing National Front and an increasing denial of the Holocaust among some persons in the 1990s, surveys showed an increase in stereotypical antisemitic beliefs among the general French population. In the mid-1990s, historians renewed a critical study of National Socialism, French collaboration with the Nazi regime, and the responsibility of the government of Vichy France for the deportation of Jews during the Holocaust. They contested the 1972 book Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 (published in French as La France de Vichy) by American historian Robert Paxton, who had argued that the Vichy Regime cooperated with Nazi Germany during its occupation.

The Second Intifada, beginning in 2000, contributed to rising tensions with Arab Muslims and Jews feeling less welcome in North African nations. Most have now left the region. Beginning in the late 20th century, more Arabs from North African nations began to emigrate to France for economic reasons and to escape civil wars in their home nations. France has struggled to help young working-class Arab adults find jobs, and their unemployment rate remains high. In their isolated public housing communities outside Paris, antisemitic sentiment is widespread. Many working-class Arabs and Sephardic Jews also settled in cities in southern France, which had long been linked by trade and culture to North Africa. In many of these communities, such as Nice and Marseille, Arab and Jewish immigrants from North African nations have lived in mixed communities as they began to make new lives in France. Both Jews and Muslims are minorities in France. Many North African Jews worked with Arab immigrants to combat racism in France against the latter group, and support other progressive causes.

French concerns about antisemitism among second-generation Arab groups are also related to general concerns about Islamic terrorism in the country. The November 2015 Paris attacks, orchestrated by the Islamic State, left 140 dead—including the perpetrators—and at least 400 individuals injured. Those attacks were generally targeted at all French people. In addition, from the end of 2015 into early 2016, there were independent attacks against individual Jews in several cities, including three in Marseille from October to January.

Historian Maud Mandel grounds her book Jews and Muslims in France: A History of a Conflict (2014) on historic relations among the peoples of North Africa. She attributes the roots of Muslim antisemitism among second-generation immigrants in France to earlier inter-communal relations among the peoples in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco; the course of decolonization in North Africa; and events in the continuing Arab–Israeli conflict.

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