Tens of thousands are expected to attend Sunday’s march against anti-Semitism in Paris amid disputes between political parties over who should take part and who escalated anti-Semitic incidents in France. Tensions have been rising in the French capital, which is home to large Jewish and Muslim communities, since the October 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by a month-long Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
More than 3,000 police and gendarmerie will be deployed to maintain security at the “great civic march,” according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanen.
On the eve of the march, President Emmanuel Macron condemned the “intolerable resurgence of rampant anti-Semitism” in the country. “A France in which our Jewish citizens fear is not France. A France in which French people are feared because of their religion or origin is not France,” he wrote in a letter published Saturday in the daily Le Parisien. He noted that Sunday’s march should show France as “united behind its values, its universalism.”
France has registered nearly 1,250 anti-Semitic acts since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7. Macron announced that he would attend the march “in his heart and in his thoughts”. He condemned the “confusion” surrounding the rally and stressed that it was being “used” by some politicians for their own purposes.
“The more people the merrier”
Speakers of both houses of parliament, Yael Braun-Pivet and Gerard Larchet, respectively, called on Tuesday for “universal mobilization” to march against rising anti-Semitism. They will lead the march behind a banner with the inscription “For the Republic, against anti-Semitism”.
The left-wing France Disobedient party said it would boycott the event, which the far-right National Union plans to attend. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced that the march should also serve to oppose “Islamic fundamentalism” – a favorite theme of her anti-immigrant party. “The more people there are, the better,” she pointed out, adding that she was willing to march “in the back” if her presence was a problem.
France Rebellious leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon dismissed the march as a meeting of “friends of unconditional support for the Palestinian massacre” in Gaza. Communist leader Fabien Roussel said he “will not march together” with the National Union. He said the far-right party was founded by people who had been “repeatedly convicted of anti-Semitic speech” and who had “collaborated” with Nazi Germany. Other left-wing parties, as well as youth and human rights organizations, will come to the protest behind a common slogan, separated from the extreme right. No speeches are scheduled.
No posturing
Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne said on Sunday there was “no room for posturing” at the march. “This is a vital battle for national cohesion,” she wrote on the X Network, hours before she herself was expected to walk at the head of the column. Born’s father survived the Nazi death camp Auschwitz in occupied Poland, but he committed suicide when she was 11 years old.
Among a long list of recent anti-Semitic acts, Paris prosecutors are investigating an Oct. 31 incident in which buildings in the city and suburbs were daubed with dozens of Stars of David. The graffiti, which brought back memories of the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II and the deportation of Jews to death camps, was condemned across the political spectrum.
The march comes a day after several thousand people demonstrated in Paris under the slogan and chants “Stop the slaughter in Gaza”. Left-wing organizers called on France to “demand an immediate ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas militants.
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2023-11-12 13:13:00
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