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For the past few decades, France has been taking in Muslims and Arabs from North Africa and the
Middle East without much regard to the philosophy and culture which the immigrants are carrying in with them. What has
increasingly become obvious is that the overriding belief of many of these French newcomers is the following: Islam
is the only true religion and all who refuse to accept and convert to Islam are infidels and its corollary,
Death to all infidels!
Jews have been part of France for centuries. By the beginning of the 20th century, the relatively
small assimilated Jewish community was based mainly in Paris, and very well established among the city's business, financial,
and intellectual elite. A third of Parisian bankers were Jewish, led by the Rothschild family. Many of the most influential
French intellectuals were nominally Jewish, including Henri Bergson, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and Emile Durkheim. The Dreyfus
affair to some degree rekindled their sense of being Jewish. Jews were prominent in art and culture, typified by such
artists as Modigliani, Soutine, and Chagall. The Jews considered themselves fully integrated into French culture.
By the time Dreyfus was fully exonerated in 1906, anti-Semitism had declined sharply and it
declined again during and immediately after the First World War, as the nation understood that many Jews had died fighting for
France.
France’s Jewish community was the oldest and largest in Europe and it had played a vital role in
the nation’s history. Without French Jews, “France is not France.”[1]
But today the situation for many of France’s longtime Jewish families and citizens is recognized
as dire. The rising levels of anti-Semitism in France have reached a point where Jews are fleeing the country in droves,
and yet French officials are doing little to combat the anti-Semitism that has permeated this supposedly enlightened
European country. The resulting mass emigration of Jews from France has been described as essentially “an ethnic cleansing.”
“In a few decades, there will be no Jews in France,” it is predicted.
Although Jews represented less than 1 percent of the French population, 40 percent of all
violent hate crimes in France were anti-Semitic. According to The Huffington Post, the three groups of people in
France who harbored the most anti-Semitic views are the far-right National Front, the far-left Left Front and Muslims.
Islamists in France frequently give anti-Semitic speeches in Mosques and disseminate anti-Semitic propaganda from selling
the likes of the discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion to teaching it in various schools. And yet, French
officials have done little to combat this. Journalists who try to expose the anti-Semitic and anti-Christian sentiments in
certain Muslim neighborhoods in France get slapped with charges of “incitement.”[2]
As an example of Islamic terrorism in France, on 6 October 2020, Samuel Paty, a popular history
and geography teacher at a school in a quiet Paris suburb, presented a copy of the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that
provoked the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine five years previous. He had no idea of the tragic consequences to himself,
to French society or to France’s relations with the Islamic world. What was intended as a classroom exploration of the
freedom of thought turned into a mini-clash of civilizations.
Ten days later, Paty was decapitated, allegedly by a Russian-born, Muslim teenager.
[3]
France is no longer the France of earlier days. France is overrun by Muslims from northern Africa
and the Middle East who have turned the country into a text of Islamic terrorism. France is under terrorist attack. It is
under attack by those who have been invited in by the French. France - at one time a welcoming home for Jews – has, at the
same time, revived the anti-Semitism of the past. The result: Islamic terrorists are invading France in greater and greater
numbers and France’s Jews are leaving in greater and greater numbers – Terrorists, OUI! - Jews, NON! Will France
be better off when all this plays out or will France be worse off as have most countries that have treated their Jews badly?
I refer readers to a previous article of mine - The Bitter Fruits of AntiSemitism, David Burton, Son of
Eliyahu; Article 433, 1 September 2020.
In November 2020, following Paty’s beheading, three people were murdered inside the Cathedral of
Nice by a man shouting “Allahu Akbar!” The Jihadist threat weighing on France is spreading rapidly.
“. . . a note from the French Interior Ministry had announced that, the risk of terrorist attacks
against churches was . . . ‘very high’.
“ ‘It is freedom of religion and conscience that is under attack’, said French Prime Minister
Jean Castex.
“In a dispatch dated October 25, in L'Express, Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin talked about
the latest threats aimed at France. Al Qaeda, it appears, had asked its followers to attack ‘the churches and symbols of
Christianity.’
- - -
“Even before these events, in 2016, in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, two Islamic State
terrorists had slaughtered the elderly priest Jacques Hamel during mass. The shock was immense. Then more terrorists
unsuccessfully struck Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris with a car filled with dynamite. Another terrorist murdered three
visitors to a Strasbourg Christmas market, and a terrorist plan against the churches of Villejuif, in the Val-de-Marne,
was thwarted by the police.
“After {the} attack in Nice, terror attacks were also registered in Avignon and in Lyon. . .
- - -
“. . . Not a single political head of state in Europe . . . dares to face . . . Islamist
penetration and separatism. Denmark surrendered in the battle over freedom of expression (the Jyllands Posten newspaper
has embraced programmatic self-censorship on Islam). After Samuel Paty's beheading, will Macron's France offer its head
to the Islamist guillotine?
“France is at an existential crossroads. Islamist beheadings are now taking place in its streets
and churches. Stopping radical Islam or facing a ‘civil war’, as the former Chief of Staff of the French army Pierre de
Villiers declared. They cannot run away and hide.” (Ref. 4)
Jews and France
In 2015, following the deadly assault on a kosher supermarket in Paris, a brief history of France’s
Jews was contained in an article appearing in Times Magazine. A summary of the article follows.
The deadly assault on a kosher supermarket in Paris at the start of 2015 confirmed the fears of
many French Jews that anti-Semitism was a persistent and growing threat in France. By then, thousands of Jews had already
departed for Israel in the wake of the 2012 shooting at a Jewish day school and an attack in 2014 on the Jewish museum in
Belgium. The flood has continued to this day.
The history of the Jewish community in France has, in some ways, always been shaped by anti-Semitism.
On the other hand, following the 2015 attack, Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared that “France without Jews is not France”.
Some of the key periods that have shaped the history of French Jews are described in the following.
1. The French Revolution
Within two years of the Revolution, France became the first country in modern Europe to grant
Jews equal rights under the law, setting a precedent for France and a new standard for Europe as a whole. At the time,
there were only about 40,000 Jews in France.
2. Napoleon and the Great Sanhedrin
Still, the question of if and how to integrate the Jewish community into French society - a problem
known at the time as “the Jewish question” - persisted after the Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was named
French Emperor in 1804.
Proposing to put the question to the Jewish people, in 1806 Napoleon convened an assembly of
important leaders in the Jewish community to clarify their political and religious loyalties. A year later, Jewish religious
leaders gathered for what was called the Great Sanhedrin. Through this process, Napoleon effectively asked whether the
allegiances of French Jews lay in the Jewish community or in the larger society. Jews declared themselves first and foremost
French citizens, and that’s where their primary political allegiances were. After that, over a period of decades, successive
generations of Jews integrated more fully because now they were citizens.
3. The Dreyfus Affair
The assumption that Jews had become an integral part of French society was rocked in the late
19th century. In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was Jewish, was convicted of spying for Germany, spawning a decade-long
scandal. Dreyfus was eventually exonerated, but the period was marked by anti-Semitic riots and a vocal anti-Semitic
press.
4. The Holocaust
The Second World War had a devastating impact on Jews in France. Even before the war, the influx
of Jewish refugees and immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe had sparked an anti-Semitic backlash. At the turn of the
century, there had been about 80,000 Jews in France; by 1939, there were about 300,000. In the wake of the German invasion,
the newly installed Vichy government willingly helped the Nazis round up Jews in France, particularly from recent immigrant
communities. By the end of the war, more than 70,000 Jews were deported from France, of whom only about 2,500 would survive.
On the other hand, the high number of Jews in France who did survive the war spoke to the reluctance of many French to
participate in the Nazi deportation.
5. Jewish Migration from North Africa
In the decades following the war, as France pulled out of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco,
large populations of Jews in those countries fled. Many left for the newly established state of Israel, but others
went to France. The migration north was most pronounced in Algeria, where 90% of Jews in that country headed for France.
The influx from North Africa doubled the Jewish population in France.
6. Jewish-Muslim Tensions
The arrival of Jews from North Africa coincided with a massive influx of Muslim migrant laborers,
also largely from North Africa. Jewish and Muslim immigrants often lived peacefully side-by-side in the early years.
Beginning in the 1980s, however, tensions began to emerge, especially as the state failed to fully integrate the Muslim
community into French society. Those tensions were only heightened by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The more recent high profile attacks against Jews have fueled fears of escalating anti-Semitism
since the 2000s. Those attacks are linked to global Islamic terrorism. Supposedly, that phenomenon does not run through
France’s very diverse and large Muslim population but is caused by one fringe element. [5]
Meanwhile, French Jews – who, in the early 2000’s, were the third largest Jewish population in
the world after America and Israel – now, more and more are leaving what was once their homeland for safer
climes.
Muslims and France
France has the largest number of Muslims in the Western world. Today, Islam is the second-most
widely professed religion in France. The deleterious effects of Muslim immigration into France has become increasingly
obvious.
“France is probably the worst affected of all western nations by immigration, since it is on the
brink of losing its European identity to the insistent Muslims increasing in numbers within French borders. As they grow in
population, they come to believe they can impose the will of Islam on the French people, who seem rather unconcerned with
the transformation.
“With a population of five million Muslims, France is holding a tiger by the ears. The threat of
violence from radical Islamic elements cannot be far from politicians' minds. Wherever there are large numbers of Arabs,
there is crime and violence, particularly against women.
“France should be seen as a cautionary tale of immigration run amok, and how quickly things get
out of control. Muslim immigration to France is a post-war phenomenon for the most part: just a few decades of high
immigration of a group with high fertility has put France in the unenviable position of being the European nation thought
most likely to be the first to introduce sharia (Islamic) law.” (Ref. 6)
French Anti-Semitism
“In July 2004, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon caused a bit of an international incident
when he told French Jews to move to Israel immediately to escape Antisemitism. . . . he said Jews around the world
should relocate to Israel as early as possible. But for those living in France, Sharon added, moving was a ‘must’ because
of rising violence against Jews there. He was correct, and it’s still happening.
“On Saturday, June 13th {2020}, anti-racism protesters in Paris shouted ‘Dirty Jews’ at a group
of counter-protesters - not because they were Jewish but because it was the most repulsive label Parisians could
think of to call someone. [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“A November 2019 National Geographic report about Jews in France warned about French
Antisemitism:
“From the expulsion of Jews in 1306 to the Dreyfus Affair of 1894 to the Vichy government’s
cooperation with the Nazi extermination of 75,000 French Jews, France has a long history of anti-Semitism. Today hate
comes from both the far right and far left. Some Yellow Vest protesters have accosted prominent French Jews and called
President Macron ‘a whore of the Jews.’
“(…) France’s interior minister has warned that anti-Jewish sentiment is “spreading like poison.”
President Emmanuel Macron declared that anti-Semitism was at its highest levels since World War II. Amidst a string of
attacks, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe admitted that anti-Semitism is ‘deeply rooted in French society.’
[Emphasis mine]
“Sixteen years ago, the late Ariel Sharon told French Jews to save themselves and move to Israel.
His words still ring true. They feel threatened. And when a French group wants to call their opposition names, they conjure
up the most offensive term a French citizen can use against a rival, Sales Juifs, Dirty Jews! They don’t use the
term because their rivals are Jewish, but because to the French, a Jew is an ugly thing.
“Its time that French Jews heed Ariel Sharon’s warning and leave their anti-Semitic country before
it’s too late.” (Ref. 7)
  Today, in France, in what was once one of the most civilized nations in Europe:
- ”Suburbs have become transformed into one of the most visible signs of the Islamization of France. Anti-Semitism is
devouring the French Republic.
- ”While Jewish symbols disappear from France, Islamic symbols proliferate, from burkinis on the beaches to veils in
the workplace. Jews who have not fled France are trying to become ‘invisible’.
- ”France's suburbs are rapidly becoming apartheid societies. Hatred of Jews has become the gateway to "la France
soumise" -- the submission of France.
“Suburbs (‘banlieues’) -- distant from the affluent boulevards and bistros of Paris --
form the ‘other France’. They are the ‘peripheral France’, (‘La France Périphérique’) as the geographer Christophe Guilluy
calls them in an important book. They are where ‘living together’ between communities has really been tested.
“In the last 20 years, these French suburbs have not only become ‘concentrations of poverty and
social isolation’, but have gone from being some of France's most densely-populated Jewish areas to ‘lost territories of
the Republic’ . . .
“These suburbs have become transformed into one of the most visible signs of the Islamization of
France.
“Anti-Semitism has returned as one of Europe's worst diseases. France {in 2017} hosts Europe's
largest Jewish community, and Jews have been fleeing the suburbs to either emigrate or move to gentrified districts of the
cities, where they feel more protected. . .
“In the Parisian suburb of Bagneux, someone recently vandalized the memorial plaque for Ilan Halimi,
a young Jew who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by a ‘barbarian gang’ in 2006, just for being a Jew. At the time, it was
France's first case of murderous anti-Semitism in many years. After it, Islamists murdered Jews at a school in Toulouse and a
kosher supermarket in Paris.
“As Le Monde reported in a chilling new inquiry, anti-Semitism now knocks daily at the doors of the
French Jews. It has been creating a serious migratory trend: French Jews have become ‘internal refugees’.
“French Jews are now not only threatened in their synagogues and schools, but in their homes. A
Jewish family was recently held hostage, beaten and robbed in their home in the suburb of Seine Saint-Denis. Before that, a
retired Jewish doctor and schoolteacher, Sarah Halimi, was beaten and thrown to her death from her balcony, in the Belleville
district of Paris. The man who murdered her, while yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ (‘Allah is Greater’), was a Muslim neighbor. Two
Jewish brothers were recently attacked on a Paris street by men wielding a hacksaw and shouting ‘You dirty Jews! You are
going to die’.
- - -
“Historic Jewish quarters have been emptied. . . Jewish children {are} leaving public schools in
favor of private ones. Organizations have been helping 400 Jewish families relocate their children into private schools, to
be more secure.
“Between 2005-2015, there were 4,092 anti-Semitic attacks in France. According to a {2017} study
by the Foundation for Political Innovation, 60% of Jews in France said they were ‘worried about being physically attacked
in the street as Jews.’
- - -
“The French government has launched an operation to protect 800 synagogues, schools and community
centers. But as Le Monde explains, there is little it can do to protect Jews on the streets and in their homes. Islamic
anti-Semitism is devouring the French Republic. [Emphasis mine]
“. . . ‘exposure to anti-Semitic violence is highly correlated with wearing a kippa’. The Jewish
skullcap has disappeared from public view in many areas of France. In Marseille, it was explicit - a local Jewish leader
called on Jews, for their safety, to avoid wearing the Jewish symbols in public. While Jewish symbols disappear, Islamic
symbols proliferate, from burkinis on the beaches to the veils at the workplace. Jews who did not flee France are trying
to become ‘invisible’.
- - -
“Anti-Semitism has revolutionized France - both its geography and demography. Jew-hate has
become the gateway to the ‘France soumise’ - the submission of France.” [Emphasis mine] (Ref. 8)
France’s Islamic Terrorists, Oui! – France’s Peaceful Jews, Non! Once more, the
seeds of anti-Semitism, rooted in virulent Islamic extremism, are producing some very bitter fruit!
Vive laFrance!
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References:
- A France Without Jews Is No Longer Unthinkable, Robert Zaretsky, Foreign Affairs,
4 February 2020.
- Jews Are Fleeing France in Droves As Anti-Semitism Goes Unchecked, Aaron Bandler,
Jewish Journal,
2 March 2018.
- Macron’s clash with Islam sends jolt through France’s long debate about secularism, Patrick Wintour,
The Guardian, 26 October 2020.
- France must stop radical Islam or face a civil war, Giulio Meotti, Arutz Sheva,
4 November 2020.
- The History of Jews in France in 6 Key Moments, Noah Rayman, TIME, 15 January 2015.
- How France Has Fallen, Brenda Walker, www.limitstogrowth.org, 2004.
- French Anti-Racism Protesters Scream At Counter-Protesters Calling Them ‘Dirty Jews’, Jeff Dunetz,
THE LID, 14 June 2020.
- France: Muslims In, Jews Out, Giulio Meotti, Gatestone Institute, 15 November 2017.
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