PARIS—Arriving at the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) in Paris, one observes high levels of security implemented to protect the premises and screen every visitor.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the CRIF, told JNS that the police in France, and particularly the Interior Ministry, have long carried out a mission to protect the most sensitive community sites.
High security has been in place for 25 to 30 years and not linked to the current geopolitical context. Arfi lives under police protection, just as his predecessors did. The level of security may vary depending on the period, but overall the president of the CRIF, the chief rabbi of France, and several community figures are under police protection, just as are many public figures in France who are threatened by Islamism. They include, for instance, people working for Charlie Hebdo and anti-terrorism judges.
“The issue of antisemitism is taken seriously by the public authorities, whether through public resources, police protection and other measures. Alongside that, there is also an effort by Jewish institutions themselves, notably through the Jewish community’s protection service, which coordinates the community’s overall security efforts, to protect institutions,” he said.
Regardless of the political orientation of the government, Arfi said, there has been a very high level of cooperation for at least 25 years. It has not solved the problem, nor has it prevented the most violent antisemitic acts and terrorist attacks, such as the 2012 Toulouse attack or the HyperCacher attack, and so on, but there is genuinely a willingness on the part of the public authorities to work with Jewish institutions on this issue, Arfi said.
“We can discuss what is not working, why certain shortcomings remain, and what could be done better, but the first thing to say is that, regardless of the political discourse, on a technical level there is first and foremost a commitment by the public authorities to combating antisemitism from a security standpoint,” he added.
When it comes to the most recent form of antisemitism, Arfi said that France was the first country to be hit and the one to be hit the hardest. This new antisemitism, he said, is rooted in hatred of Israel and anti-Zionism, in Islamism, and in conspiracy theories amplified by social media.
France, he said, was affected as early as the 2000s with the start of the Second Intifada, by antisemitism that was already fueled by the conflict.
“We experienced Islamist attacks with fatalities, such as Toulouse in 2012 and the HyperCacher attack, as well as antisemitic conspiracy-driven prejudices that led to the killing of Ilan Halimi in 2006, who died because people believed Jews were all connected to one another and had money,” Arfi said.
‘A laboratory for this new antisemitism’
While history has shown that happened in France is not a local but rather global phenomenon, Arfi said, there is a particular environment because France has both a large Jewish community and a large Arab-Muslim community that may identify with the conflict, and the situation has deteriorated over time. France became a laboratory for this new antisemitism.
Today, in response to antisemitism, there are several approaches, Arfi said. There is the repressive response—that is, policing, sanctions, arrests and severe punishments. A second aspect is centered on education, awareness and pedagogy.
“Both the victims and the perpetrators of antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, [2023], are becoming younger. We have seen antisemitism enter places such as schools that had previously been relatively protected. There have been cases involving antisemitic acts among children as young as 7 or 8 years old. Obviously, in those cases, it says nothing about the children themselves. It says something about parents, older siblings, social media among others,” Arfi said.
“We lived with the idea that antisemitism was an outdated prejudice that would disappear over time and with generational change. Today, time is working against us, because the younger generations are more antisemitic than the previous ones. There is therefore a real need to confront directly the issue of antisemitism among younger generations,” he added.
These younger generations, he said, are shaped by an anti-Zionism that has become a cultural norm. It has become the banner of a generation that has adopted the language of “genocide” without questioning it.
The CRIF has a digital unit that monitors and reports content on an industrial scale to the media platforms. It is recognized as a “trusted flagger,” which is an official status in France that allows its reports to be treated with priority by social media platforms.
The CRIF has also developed content for social networks, including a YouTube channel and Instagram account that produce videos.
“We cannot abandon the field of youth engagement; otherwise, we are condemning ourselves to difficult days ahead,” Arfi said.
In France, he said, it is more difficult to measure Iran’s direct influence, as Tehran likely prioritizes Anglo-Saxon countries, partly because there is a larger Iranian diaspora there, and probably also because Iran considers those countries to play a more important role strategically.
The influence of North African countries
France, he said, is more shaped by the influence of North African countries—Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
“Morocco is currently a very favorable actor working toward dialogue with the Jewish world and Israel, but Algeria is different. Turkey also plays a significant and, in my view, toxic role in France, maintaining a very hardline stance toward Israel,” Arfi said.
“France also has the particularity of a very strong resonance of the Lebanese issue within French society. The Gaza issue has had a very powerful impact as well, whereas Iran somewhat less so. That said, we are not immune to the possibility of an Iran-directed attack in the future, including one of a terrorist nature, as was the case in the 1980s,” he continued.
“Nothing allows us to rule out that what happened in the United Kingdom could also happen in France in the coming weeks,” he added.
While Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization in France, the latter still distinguishes between Hezbollah’s “military wing” and its “political wing,” a distinction Arfi considers unacceptable.
“The issue is not whether an organization is legitimate because it has a political branch. It is about remembering that any organization becomes unacceptable and must be opposed the moment it has a terrorist branch. We are fighting against this phenomenon,” he said.
“In France, because of particular ties with Lebanon, there is a lack of clarity regarding Hezbollah that we consider dangerous,” he added.
In the aftermath of Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist massacre, Paris, Arfi explained, saw fewer participants in pro-Palestinian demonstrations than other European capitals. In London, for instance, demonstrations drew as many as 300,000 people, whereas in France the highest turnout was around 50,000.
This, according to Arfi, reflects the fact that the French republican and universalist model is somewhat less communitarian and deterministic than the United Kingdom’s model, which created a certain degree of distance and resulted overall in somewhat less radicalism in the streets.
“It is not sufficient; there are still pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and they continue to bring together both people acting in good faith and motivated by humanitarian concerns, and on the other hand agitators, manipulators, radicals, apologists for terrorism and purveyors of hate, who promote violent rhetoric,” Arfi said.
“There is regular awareness work carried out at the level of the public authorities, but we still regularly see rhetoric amounting to glorification of terrorism operating in a gray area that continues to persist. The most serious cases should be prosecuted,” he added.
When it comes to legislating against antisemitism, the CRIF supported the “Yadan law,” proposed by MP Caroline Yadan this year, meant to tie anti-Zionism and antisemitism, which was eventually withdrawn.
“Antisemitism changes. It evolved from racial antisemitism to Holocaust-denial antisemitism in the 1980s, and today to anti-Zionist antisemitism. At every stage, it is important to have laws that specifically sanction it,” Arfi said.
In 1972, France passed the Pleven Law against incitement to racial hatred, which condemned antisemitism in its dimension of incitement to racial hatred. Then, when antisemitism took on a denialist form in the 1980s, the Gayssot Law was legislated in 1990.
“France may be the only country in the world with a law prohibiting Holocaust denial—the Gayssot Law, which combats Holocaust denialism. Now that antisemitism has continued to evolve and increasingly takes the form of anti-Zionism, it seems important to me that at some point the national representation formally condemn it,” he continued.
“The idea of affirming that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism has already been expressed by the president and in many other contexts. I note, however, that this is not enough—more is needed,” Arfi said.
