French Jewish leader calls on government to declare emergency

A leader of French Jews on Sunday called on the government to declare a state of emergency to deal with nationwide rioting, which he said was being organized by the far left.

“I believe we need to declare a state of emergency in France, send in the army, massively increase law enforcement personnel and arrest these rioters and vandals by every means,” Bruno Benjamin, the president of the Marseille-Provence branch of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish institutions, told JNS.

On Sunday morning, congregants of one synagogue in Paris found that it had been ransacked on Saturday, Jewish community sources said.
It was not immediately clear whether that incident in the 19th Arrosidssement was antisemitic or connected to the rioting, Robert Ejnes, the executive director of the CRIF’s national head office in Paris, told JNS.

Hundreds of thousands of people have participated in protests in cities across France over the weekend. The protests, which have been going on for several weeks in waves, began over conditions at public schools, according to some protesters, but have devolved into vandalism, looting and violence against police.

Some 1,200 people have been arrested over the weekend and at least 150 police officers were injured. Footage from Marseille showed police coming under heavy volleys of stones and other objects on a central square. A police station was ransacked in Marseille and in the city of Limoges, City Hall was torched.

Sener Yilmaz Aslan/Getty Images

Many protesters carried Palestinian flags, Benjamin said, but there has been no indication of Jewish institutions being targeted in Marseille, the second largest city in France and home to the country’s second-largest Jewish community, after Paris.

In Paris, Meyer Habib, a French-Jewish former lawmaker, told Channel 14 that Place de la République, where rioting also occurred on Saturday, was “flooded” with Palestinian flags.

“While French President Emmanuel is giving advice to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about security, the main square in Paris, the Christian Dior shops, the Apple shops, even grocery stores, [are looted] by whole families, mothers with their children.”

He added: “I feel pain for France, my country, and call on my French brethren: Wake up before it’s too late.”

In Marseille, as elsewhere in France, synagogues remained open for morning, afternoon and evening prayers, with the Jewish Community Protection Service, or SPCJ, maintaining vigilance despite weeks of strain, Benjamin said. “For now, there are no warnings or warning signs that would lead us to say we need to close the synagogues,” he said.

Community officials had considered whether synagogues in the city center could come under attack, Benjamin said. Those fears did not materialize. “No synagogue was attacked. No Jews were assaulted,” he said of that day’s violence.

Asked whether the unrest could prompt more French Jews to move to Israel, Benjamin said Jews must retain the freedom to choose where they live.

“Those who want to make aliyah should make aliyah because they want to live in Israel,” he said. “Those who want to stay must be able to stay, because we must continue fighting to ensure they can live and build their lives in France as they wish.”

Describing the broader violence, Benjamin said vandals had exploited a protest to smash and loot businesses. Some shopkeepers had closed after thieves stole their merchandise and destroyed their premises, he said.

He expressed sympathy for those merchants and for exhausted police officers, saying the unrest had continued for more than a month.

Until the previous day, Benjamin said, he had trusted the authorities’ ability to maintain order. Seeing police overwhelmed had shaken that confidence. “We are questioning whether they can ensure everyone’s safety,” he said.

Benjamin also criticized the display of Palestinian flags at the demonstrations, describing the Palestinian cause as a fashionable rallying point. He blamed the far-left France Unbowed party for encouraging the unrest, accusing figures including party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Mathilde Panot, the party’s faction leader in parliament, of seeking to foment “revolt” and force concessions from authorities.

The political effect would be to strengthen Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party ahead of next year’s presidential elections, Benjamin predicted.

“It is not Marine Le Pen who is coming to power because of her qualities, her platform or her vision for France,” he said. “It is the far left, by behaving this way, that is putting National Rally and Marine Le Pen into orbit.”

Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, also touched on the political powers at play amid the riots.

“I was convinced that the Right coming to power in France would trigger a civil war. It turns out I was being optimistic: it has already begun,” Chikli wrote. “I wish France victory over barbarism, despite its betrayal of Israel. Belgium and Britain, you are probably next. Get ready.”

France under Macron has adopted an anti-Israeli approach, which included recognizing a Palestinian state last year and imposing an arms embargo on Israel.