By Gerard Leval

When it comes to its Jewish community, France is afflicted with a serious case of schizophrenia; a schizophrenia has been on full display in past weeks. Recent events have served to emphasize the deep political and psychological divide that epitomizes contemporary France when it comes to its relationship with Jews.

The French government’s decision, just last year, to recognize a Palestinian state in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacres was obviously disturbing to Jews. Actually, it was entirely consistent with President Emmanuel Macron’s government’s repeated expressions of dislike for the Netanyahu government and for his failure to constrain anti-Israel sentiment, which, in France, like in so many places, only too often lapses into antisemitic rhetoric and acts.

The open hostility to Israel, Zionism and, by implication, all things Jewish, propagated by left-wing French politicians, who do not shy away from antisemitic tropes, continues in full swing. The overt or tacit approval of antisemitic activities by academics and by other elites can also be seen across France.

Last month, the municipal government of Paris declared Gazans honorary citizens of the city. The declaration highlighted alleged Gazan suffering but did not express any sympathy for the victims of the attacks on Israel and Israelis which emanated from Gaza. The Paris Jewish community has voiced its objections and concern to no avail.

Harassment of Jews in France continues and there are neighborhoods, primarily in the northern suburbs of Paris, where it is best for Jews not to go if they are wearing outward signs of their Jewishness. Of course, Jewish establishments in France, from synagogues to day schools to cultural institutions, have to be protected at all times by armed guards to prevent vandalism and violence.

And yet, amid all this developing anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment, the Macron government just bestowed France’s highest civilian honor — symbolic entombment within the Panthéon, the Paris mausoleum which honors France’s greatest heroes — to Marc Bloch, a noted French-Jewish historian (together with his spouse, Simonne). Bloch, whose important writings glorified French history, was tortured and murdered by the Gestapo in 1944 because he was a Jew. The Blochs were the fourth and fifth Jews (of a total of nine individuals) inducted into the Panthéon during the years of the Macron administration. (The other Jews were Simone Veil, the Auschwitz survivor who was health minister when abortion was legalized, and her husband Antoine, and Robert Badinter, the former justice minister who prompted the abolition of the death penalty.)

At the ceremony honoring Marc and Simonne Bloch, President Macron delivered a lengthy and moving eulogy in which he emphasized the harm that antisemitism had caused to France since the Dreyfus Affair of the late 19th century and especially during the years of the Vichy regime in the 1940s. His words were eloquent and, unlike his recent actions, unambiguous.

Macron did not mince his words regarding the poison that is antisemitism and the harm that can and has been done to France by antisemitism. Describing the discrimination and ultimate martyrdom to which Bloch was subjected by France’s Nazi collaborators, the French president movingly stated:

“The case of Marc Bloch demonstrates that, as soon as a Jew is targeted, there is always an official to requisition his assets; there is a policeman to search his residence; there is a judge to condemn him; there is an academic to justify his persecution; there is a journalist to approve of his persecution; there is a neighbor to denounce him … and so many others to look away.”
Sadly, the gap between the president’s words and his own actions echoes the schizophrenia which has afflicted France since the Revolution of 1789, which granted full legal equality to its Jewish residents — a first in the Western world. There is the liberal, tolerant France motivated by the lofty philosophy of the Enlightenment, and then there is a France that is bigoted and filled with prejudice, regrettably only too often directed against its Jewish population, and today strongly influenced by the prejudice of recent Muslim immigrants.

President Macron’s words appeal to France’s better nature. His warnings about antisemitism are insightful and compelling. They serve to remind his fellow citizens of the terrible risks of inciting hatred against Jews and the terrible legacy that antisemitism has left in France. However, his actions do not underscore his words.

When Macron and his ministers repeatedly single out Israel for criticism and isolation, they do not seem to realize that they are marginalizing Jews. For many French people, and especially for those who already have antisemitic tendencies, Macron’s repeated accusations against the Jewish state do not leave room for the kinds of distinctions that Macron may think he can draw. Attacks against Israel simply encourage attacks against Jews.

So, while placing a martyred Jewish couple in the sacred Panthéon in Paris is a praiseworthy act and rhetorically defending the place of Jews in French society is profoundly important, this is not sufficient. Until there is a cessation of repeated one-sided condemnations of the only Jewish state in the world and firm steps are taken to protect the Jewish community and its institutions as priorities for the French government, the status of Jews in France will remain precarious.

France’s history, both the good and the bad, mandate that France, from its president to its most modest citizen, acknowledge the need to wage an unremitting war against antisemitism, including against anti-Zionism and the denigration of Israel, behind which the current French antisemites so conveniently hide and spread their venom.

Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of a national law firm.