Clichés die hard, especially towards the Jews of France. The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (Crif), which will hold its 14th Convention this Sunday in the presence of the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, the former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, unveils a study carried out by Ipsos. It reveals in particular that many anti-Semitic prejudices remain anchored in our country. Thus, only 3% of French people do not adhere to any of the 16 prejudices tested in the survey, a stable proportion compared to 2020.
Nearly half of French people (46%) adhere to six or more “anti-Semitic opinions”, a proportion up 9 points compared to 2020. The most common prejudice is that “Jews are very united among themselves” (89 % of respondents consider this opinion to be true).
“Widespread” anti-Semitism in France
The overall lesson of this study is that anti-Semitism is considered “widespread” in France by 79% of the population (+4 points compared to 2020). For 75% of respondents, the current conflict in the Middle East is causing a rise in anti-Semitism in France. And in this context, 64% of French people believe that there are reasons to fear living in France when you are Jewish (+14 points compared to 2020).
For only less than half of French people (47%), Jews have “no responsibility for the anti-Semitism” that exists in France. And nearly one in six French people (16%) consider that they have a “significant” or “very important” share. But the vast majority of French people are inflexible on the issue of anti-Semitic acts or words: for 89% of them, nothing can justify them.
Attacks on the rise
These results should fuel this day of debates and interventions in a context of an increase in anti-Semitic incidents recorded in France. They had almost doubled in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, with 887 incidents recorded compared to 304 a year earlier, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior in August.
Our file on anti-Semitism
In 2023, according to Crif data communicated in January, the number of anti-Semitic incidents had quadrupled over one year, with 1,676 cases.
* Ipsos survey conducted from September 20 to 23 among 1,000 people, constituting a national sample representative of the French population aged 18 and over.
