Facing a difficult choice between two rising political extremes, incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron allied his Ensemble block with the Far Left in the second round of his country’s legislative elections. The results last Sunday showed cheering crowds waving red Algerian and Palestinian flags on the streets of Paris, but very few flags of the country that held the election.
“We will have a prime minister from the New Popular Front,” tweeted Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Far-Left leader. “We will be able to decide many things by decree. On the international level, we will have to agree to recognize the State of Palestine.”
Mélechon’s prioritizing of Palestinian recognition is likely the lowest hanging fruit on his agenda, as there was no party winning the majority in the 577-seat National Assembly. In contrast to social and economic reforms, recognizing a country on paper appears as the easiest goal to achieve. It would continue the momentum from last month’s recognition of Palestine by Ireland, Spain, and Norway.
For now, it is not clear how the power-sharing between centrists and leftists will play out. New Popular Front secured 182 seats for Mélechon’s France Unbowed party, along with socialists, communists, and other parties on the political left. Macron’s centrist allies kept 168 seats, and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won 143 seats.
In the first round, which took place on June 30, her nationalist party was surging with a third of the vote, having spent more than a decade shedding her father Jean-Marie Le Pen’s connection to the party that included downplaying the Holocaust and praising the collaborationist Vichy regime. The daughter followed her father in railing against immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East, but also expressed support for Israel and the Jewish community.
Amid rising anti-Semitism, some French Jewish leaders chose the “lesser of the evils,” cautiously expressing support for the far-right bloc.
“The National Rally supports Jews, supports the State of Israel,” famed Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, 88, said in a nationally televised interview last month. “When there is an anti-Jewish party and a pro-Jewish party, I will vote for the pro-Jewish party.”
Klarsfeld’s frank assessment of the election is comparable to the choice made by many Jewish voters in the United States. Fearing that Democratic lawmakers are not supportive enough towards Israel, they look to Donald Trump and the Republicans as their support for Israel comes without any hesitation.
The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the largest representative organization of French Jews, warned against extreme parties in a statement published ahead of the second round.
“Faithful to the history of our institutions and to the spirit of Judaism, we do not accept associating ourselves with those who tend to exclude or stigmatize our neighbor, or with those who inflame our society by spreading hatred and anti-Semitism under the cover of anti-Zionism,” the statement read, in reference to Le Pen without naming her.
“Populism or nationalism have never been a bulwark against antisemitism in history, nor have they brought peace and serenity. No, anti-Semitism is neither ‘residual’ nor ‘contextual,’ as some have dared to claim,” quoting words that Mélenchon used in downplaying anti-Semitic incidents.
Grande Synagogue of Paris Chief Rabbi Moshe Sebbag also participated in that statement, but in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, was not optimistic on the future of Jews in that country.
“I tell everyone who is young to go to Israel or a more secure country... The moment you feel part of a country’s history, it doesn’t become another country’s history. After generations, the French Jews are very French and feel very French.”
Rabbi Sebbag’s message was aimed at young Jews, as he recognizes the difficulty for older people to leave a country to which they feel deeply attached. “People my age, who are 50, 60, we’ve made our life here and we fear for the future of our children,” he told the Times of Israel. Examples of Mélechon’s anti-Semitism include a speech in 2017 in which he called Jews “an arrogant minority that lectures to the rest.”
Among the Jewish intellectuals associated with French culture and promoting human rights, Bernard-Henry Levy also spoke directly about the escalating anti-Semitism emboldened by the election results.
“The Left is once again kidnapped by the infamous Mélenchon. Divisive language. Hate of the republic on the lips,” he tweeted. “Around him right now are some incarnations of the new anti-Semitism. A chilling moment. A stain: Continue to fight against these people.”
Jews have been living in France since antiquity, having survived centuries of Christian anti-Semitism that included massacres and mass burnings of Jewish texts. But it was also the first country in Europe to emancipate the Jews following its revolution in 1789, granting them equality under the law. In the 20th century, the community’s fortunes alternated radically between the election of Leon Blum as Prime Minister in 1936, and the mass arrests of Jews during the Holocaust by the collaborationist Vichy government. Following the loss of its North African colonies, so many Algerian and Moroccan Jews settled in France that their numbers eclipsed the Ashkenazim who survived the war. Many of them are now considering aliyah, having lost confidence in the government’s ability to combat anti-Semitic violence.
Across the English Channel, the results were mixed in regard to the sense of security for British Jews. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won in a landslide, ending 14 years of Conservative Prime Ministers in power. Anti-Semitic firebrand George Galloway lost his seat in Parliament, while former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn kept his as an independent.
After ousting Corbyn from the party, Starmer vowed a “zero-tolerance approach” towards anti-Semitism. He had the confidence of Jewish community leaders, who congratulated him on the July 4 election victory.
“We look forward to working with Keir and his Cabinet, many of whose members will be longstanding communal allies and personal friends, to advance our common objectives and values,” Board of Deputies of British Jews President Phil Rosenberg wrote in a statement. “While there may be disagreements along the way, we will seek to resolve these through constructive engagement.”
Starmer was branded by many commentators as lacking in charisma, and perhaps voters were tired of personality-driven campaigns by electing the former prosecutor. Among Jewish leaders, his purging of Corbyn from the party was recognized and praised. Starmer’s wife Victoria is Jewish, and their two children observe some of the Jewish holidays and customs.
With both major parties repudiating anti-Semitism, British Jews decided their vote on domestic and economic concerns, mirroring the American Jewish population in which Orthodox Jews were more likely to vote Conservative, while liberal Jews voted for Labour.
“May he successfully confront these challenges with wisdom and compassion, and may his government bring the blessings of prosperity, social cohesion, and security to all the citizens of our great country,” British Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis wrote to Starmer.
By Sergey Kadinsky
