Anti-Semitism is poison. In the 21st century, people killed in France because of their religion were Jewish. From the victims of Mohamed Merah to Mireille Knol and the vile murder of Ilan Halimi, a number of atrocities have legitimately caused the Jews of France to be terrified. Since October 7, the intensity of anti-Semitism in the country has undoubtedly increased. The subject is too serious to exploit it and bring false lawsuits.
Yesterday, during his press conference, Emmanuel Macron hammered home the “extremes” rhetoric with unprecedented intensity. And after having shattered the economic unrealism of the RN and the fear, he attacked the “extreme left” with much less virulence on economic and social subjects (just nuclear power) but by insisting on several occasions on the anti-Semitic words of this bloc, while sparing certain people, namely Raphaël Glucksmann and Jérôme Guedj, before ending with: “Léon Blum must be turning in his grave”.
I indeed believe that Léon Blum must be turning in his grave. Notably because the seven years of Macron’s presidency have eaten away at the Popular Front’s conquests. But also, because Blum fought like hell to have Dreyfus exonerated. In this emblematic affair, it was the left of Blum and Clémenceau which clashed with the anti-Semitic right and far-right.
A few decades later, the far right governed with Pétain. And if in the ranks of the resistance, we found a few members of the extreme right and a lot of Gaullism, it was above all out of patriotism, not out of philosemitism. When De Gaulle said that “the Jews are a self-confident and dominating people”, he can congratulate himself that the ORTF is in his hands and that social networks were not invented. When Raymond Barre, Prime Minister, goes to Rue Copernic after the attack which targeted the synagogue and he declares “this “odious” attack which wanted to strike the Israelites who were going to the synagogue and which struck “innocent French people who crossed Rue Copernic” “, the recriminations did not rain… Right-wing anti-Semitism there has been and still is for centuries without the right being decreed as anti-republican in all the major media.
But since Sunday evening, the only strategy of the opponents of the left, from Macron to the RN, is to tell voters who are preparing to vote for the Popular Front that they are going to elect anti-Semites.
Let me be clear: that there is anti-Semitism among radical left voters is certain. That there is hatred spilling beyond Netanyahu among the Gaza peace protesters, of course. That Mélenchon said many atrocities is certain. His latest outing on “residual anti-Semitism” is irresponsible and someone who uses language like him cannot ignore it. No one should deny this.
All this is heartbreaking, all this will remain. However, let’s not fall into the trap, into the rhetorical excesses which say that the left supports Hamas… Not one, not one left-wing political leader supports Hamas. Everyone strongly condemned the attacks of October 7. Two LFI elected officials refused to describe the attacks as “terrorist” and spoke of “war crimes”. When the Hamas militias cowardly kill women, children, civilians, “terrorist” is the only appropriate term, they were wrong not to say it. The new Popular Front also recognizes Hamas as a terrorist organization.
This is all true. However, there is not a measure, an act, a decision by left-wing political leaders that is motivated by anti-Semitism. The fight against anti-Semitism deserves better than these trials of intentions based on a few hyperbolic sentences.
Let us remember that the RN was founded by the Waffen, that Jean-Marie le Pen made puns like “Durafour crematory”, that Reconquête is chaired by a Holocaust denier who maintains that Pétain saved Jews. Let us remember that Gérald Darmanin wrote in his book about Napoleon “ he was interested in resolving the difficulties relating to the presence of tens of thousands of Jews in France. Some of them practiced usury and gave rise to troubles and complaints.” Where are the anti-Semitism trials, the calls for resignation, much more legitimate, for these people?
It’s a tactic as old as the world of capital when it sees the side of sharing. Anti-Semitism is all that remains for capital when it has screwed up everything to scare people into sharing. Because the French clearly see the inanity of ecocidal policies which condemn their future, of antisocial policies which burden their present, so we play on the – legitimate – pathos and the memory of the Shoah to try to anesthetize the campaign.
This is not a French specificity: in Spain Podemos were supposedly anti-Semitic, in the United States Bernie Sanders? Anti-Semite! Shame on those who use this rhetoric to put a “=” sign between the RN and the left. Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you. And if you don’t want to vote for the Popular Front, admit that you are afraid of sharing, but leave the fight against anti-Semitism out of that.
Tribune by Vincent Edin, journalist, author of “To put an end to the false ideas propagated by the extreme right” (editions de l’Atelier).
