'Clearly worrying': Oct 7th Hamas attack on Israel sparks 1000% rise in antisemetic acts in France
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00:00 Moving back to France here, and since the October 7th Hamas attack and the start of
00:06 Israel's war in Gaza, anti-Semitism is on the rise here in France.
00:11 That is home to Europe's largest Jewish population.
00:15 The number of anti-Semitic attacks and incidents has quadrupled in the last year, a Jewish
00:20 organization reports, and close to 60 percent of those acts are reported to have involved
00:25 physical violence, whereas some 12 percent took place in schools.
00:31 For more on this story, our guest is Jeremy Haddad, a member of the executive board of
00:36 the CRIF, the group that is behind those figures.
00:39 Thank you so much for joining us on France 24.
00:43 What is, tell us the mindset right now, what is the atmosphere among the Jewish community
00:50 of France, you know, three and a half months into this war in Gaza?
00:56 Yeah, the French Jewish community is very worried and very concerned about the situation
01:02 since October 7th.
01:05 As you mentioned, anti-Semitic acts have quadrupled for the year 2023, but it was an increase
01:15 of 1,000 percent since October 7th, comparing to last year.
01:21 So this means that it can happen everywhere, you know, because it happened on all the territories,
01:27 of course, where the Jewish people are the most numerous, but clearly on every territory.
01:34 And clearly it started on October 7th, so it means it was not really linked to what
01:41 happened in Gaza then.
01:42 It was clearly a kind of authorization given by the Hamas to anti-Semitic people in France
01:51 to operate their acts.
01:53 So this is, this is clearly worrying.
01:57 Do we know about the perpetrators of these attacks?
02:00 I mean, are they being taken to court at all, to justice, to pay for their crimes?
02:07 Do we know about the background of these people?
02:10 Do we have more information on the perpetrators?
02:14 So the first thing that we know is that the police have done a tremendous job, clearly,
02:23 to find the perpetrators of these acts and then to take them to court.
02:29 We do not yet know exactly what will happen in court, but we have some evidence that clearly
02:35 they will get some more severe, I would say, condemnations.
02:43 So this is quite good.
02:46 As you know, in France we are not doing any, you know, ethnic statistics, et cetera, so
02:51 we don't really know who are those people, but we should be able to do some study after
02:57 their judgment.
02:59 Now the political response here in France, has it been up to par?
03:06 We've seen that there's been, for example, a walk against anti-Semitism that was organized
03:10 a few months ago.
03:12 How would you say the political response has been in the eyes of France's Jewish community?
03:17 Yeah, political response has been right, you know.
03:22 We have the support of the government.
03:25 We have the support of the ministers.
03:28 And I would say that we have also the support of the French people.
03:32 We have done a study, you know, asking for people if we had to let people demonstrate
03:39 against Israel.
03:42 And a large majority, more than 70 percent of the French people say that no, it was not
03:49 a good idea because there were anti-Semitic slogans.
03:54 Anti-Semitic, I would say, acts even in those demonstrations.
04:03 So yes, we have the support from the government, but now clearly we don't really know what
04:11 will happen.
04:12 Thank you so much for joining us.
04:13 Jeremy Haddad, executive member of the board of the CRIF, the largest Jewish organization
04:20 in France.
04:21 Thank you so much for answering our questions.