French Prime Minister François Bayrou listed at length the disastrous litany of assassinations and other attacks that have targeted Jews down the ages in an address last week to the annual dinner in Paris of Crif, the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions.
The annual event, which this year took place on July 3, brings together government ministers, politicians, religious leaders, and representatives of the Jewish community, civil society and the media.
Bayrou denounced the “delirious, murderous beast” of antisemitism.
“The beast surprises us all the more because it has changed shape,” bemoaned Bayrou, who said that “the monster has grown other heads” that no longer have the face of the extreme right but rather of radical Islamism.
Referring to the Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom committed by Hamas in southern Israel, the prime minister said that “there can be no balance in the Middle East until Israel is recognized by its neighbors and protected from the nuclear fire of those who have never ceased to proclaim their sole obsession and intention to destroy it.”
Bayrou reaffirmed “France’s unfailing friendship.”
Before him, Yonathan Arfi, the re-elected president of Crif, launched an “appeal to our republican spirit of resistance.”
Denouncing the “obsession with Jews in public debate” and “atmospheric antisemitism,” he argued that “for violence to stop, it’s not enough to deplore it; you have to know how to fight.
“Forty years ago, we were called ‘Dirty Jews’; 20 years ago, ‘Dirty Zionists’; today, ‘Genocidaires,’” Arfi continued, lamenting the way in which some people are struggling to ‘nazify’ the world’s only Jewish state in order to “relieve consciences” of the Shoah.
“Israel’s cause is just, in this war it has not chosen,” he stressed, citing in particular the fight against the Hamas terrorist organization and the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program.
Arfi reiterated his criticism of extreme-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, de facto leader of the far-left La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”) party, for “reducing Gaza to an electoral slogan.” The Crif president also reiterated his promise to “render the political influence of La France Insoumise residual,” a reference to Melenchon’s remark that antisemitism in France is merely “residual.”
Regarding the recent war between Israel and Iran, Arfi deplored “the erratic positions of certain European diplomats,” including “that of our country.” He said he regretted that despite “its support for strikes against the Iranian nuclear threat,” the French government had blocked access to the Israeli stand at the Paris Air Show in June.
The Crif president concluded his remarks by celebrating the republic as a “community of destiny.”
“Fighting antisemitism means bringing together all French people,” he said, calling for a republican school, a firm secularism and stronger justice against online hatred.
Also on July 3, the French Interior Ministry announced a documented increase in acts targeting Jews. It recorded 504 such acts in the first half of 2025, down 24% on the same period in 2024, but up 134% from 2023.
Originally published by the European Jewish Press.
