Antisemitism in France has become heightened since the late 20th century and into the 21st century.
At the beginning of the 21st century, antisemitism in France rose sharply during the unrest of the Second Intifada in Israel and the Palestinian territories, as it did in other European nations. In addition, a significant proportion of the second-generation Muslim immigrant population in France began to identify with the Palestinian cause, with some also identifying with radical Islamism."A Frenchman Or a Jew?" By Fernanda Eberstadt, New York Times Magazine, February 29, 2004Daniella Peled, "French hatred of Jews goes far beyond Muslim antisemitism, says U.K. author", Haaretz, 18 February 2014 In the early 2000s, a critical debate on the nature of antisemitism in France accompanied denunciation of it in relation to the situation in the Middle East and to Islam. Divisions developed among anti-racist groups."Alarmed by antisemitism, French Jews consider flight", Deutsche Welt, 17 March 2014 Since 2023, France has experienced a sharp increase in reported antisemitic incidents compared to previous years.
Alarmed by violence and verbal attacks, some French Jews began to emigrate to Israel. By early 2014, the number of French Jews making aliyah (emigrating to Israel) surpassed that of American Jews emigrating. At the same time, 70% of French Jews reported in surveys that they were concerned about insults or harassment, and 60% about physical aggression because of their ethnicity; both figures are much higher than shown in surveys of the European average. In accordance with this, a survey conducted in 2024 found that one in five young French people thinks it would be a good thing that Jews leave the country.
Background At the turn of the 21st century, France had an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 Jews, most of them Sephardi Jews and of Maghrebi Jews. This is the second-largest population outside of Israel, and after that in the United States. In the early 21st century, most French Jews, like most Muslims in France, are of North African origin. In 2016, Paris had the largest population of Jews in France, followed by Marseille, which has 70,000.
Historically, numerous North African Arabs had lived and worked in France since before World War II. The Muslim community built the Grand Mosque of Paris in 1929. Its imam and rector, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, and numerous members helped protect Jews from deportation during the Holocaust. A quarter of the historic Ashkenazi Jewish population in France was murdered in the Holocaust of World War II. After the war, the French government passed laws to suppress antisemitic discrimination and actions and to protect Jews in the country.
Sociologists such as Nonna Mayer, Laurent Mucchielli, and others have said that antisemitic opinions have been in decline in France since the end of the Second World War, and that other forms of racism have been more widespread than antisemitism. Members of the French Jewish community criticized this conclusion.
In the 1950s and 1960s, many Sephardic Jews emigrated to France from countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, which had gained independence from colonial rule through extended warfare against France. The wars for independence left both sides with considerable bitterness, and Algeria was immersed in civil war for years after gaining independence. Jews left North Africa as relations in the area became more strained during the Six-Day War of 1967 between Israel, Egypt and other Arab forces. This increased tensions across the Arab world. Expressions of antisemitism were seen to rise during the Six-Day War and the French anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s and 1980s.
Following the electoral successes achieved by the extreme right-wing National Front and an increasing denial of the Holocaust among some persons in the 1990s, surveys showed an increase in stereotypical antisemitic beliefs among the general French population., US Holocaust Museum"Holocaust denial/legal concepts in Europe" , Democratic Union In the mid-1990s, historians renewed a critical study of National Socialism, French collaboration with the Nazi regime, and the responsibility of the government of Vichy France for the deportation of Jews during the Holocaust. They contested the 1972 book Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 (published in French as ) by American historian Robert Paxton, who had argued that the Vichy Regime cooperated with Nazi Germany during its occupation.
The Second Intifada, beginning in 2000, contributed to rising tensions with Arab Muslims and Jews feeling less welcome in North African nations. Most have now left the region. Beginning in the late 20th century, more Arabs from North African nations began to emigrate to France for economic reasons and to escape civil wars in their home nations. France has struggled to help young working-class Arab adults find jobs, and their unemployment rate remains high. In their isolated public housing communities outside Paris, antisemitic sentiment is widespread. Many working-class Arabs and Sephardic Jews also settled in cities in southern France, which had long been linked by trade and culture to North Africa. In many of these communities, such as Nice and Marseille, Arab and Jewish immigrants from North African nations have lived in mixed communities as they began to make new lives in France. Both Jews and Muslims are minorities in France. Many North African Jews worked with Arab immigrants to combat racism in France against the latter group, and support other progressive causes.
French concerns about antisemitism among second-generation Arab groups are also related to general concerns about Islamic terrorism in the country. The November 2015 Paris attacks, orchestrated by the Islamic State, left 140 dead—including the perpetrators—and at least 400 individuals injured. Those attacks were generally targeted at all French people. In addition, from the end of 2015 into early 2016, there were independent attacks against individual Jews in several cities, including three in Marseille from October to January.
Historian Maud Mandel grounds her book Jews and Muslims in France: A History of a Conflict (2014) on historic relations among the peoples of North Africa. She attributes the roots of Muslim antisemitism among second-generation immigrants in France to earlier inter-communal relations among the peoples in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco; the course of decolonization in North Africa; and events in the continuing Arab–Israeli conflict.
Antisemitic acts The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme, CNCDH) has issued annual reports on antisemitic activities as part of the French oversight of human rights. It recorded disturbing levels of antisemitic actions and threats in France between 2002 and 2004 (the height of the Second Intifada), and in 2009. According to CNCDH, it defined actions to be tracked as homicides, attacks and attempted attacks, arson, degradations, and violence and assault and battery. Antisemitic threats are defined as covering speech acts, threatening gestures and insults, graffiti (inscriptions), pamphlets and emails. Its data was relied on in the FRA (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights) report of antisemitism incidents in France from 2001 to 2011, which was issued in June 2012. An additional report was filled in 2023 for the years 2012 to 2022. In 2024, a report was written by the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (CRIF) detailing the number and types of antisemitic incidents that occurred in 2023 and it showed a fourfold increase in antisemitic incidents. A report released by CRIF in January 2025 reveals that 1,570 antisemitic incidents were reported in France over the course of 2024.
Antisemitic actions and threats recorded in FranceYearNumber of incidentsYearNumber of incidentsYearNumber of incidents 2001 219 2012 61420231676 2002 936 2013 42320241570 2003 601 2014 851 2004 974 2015 808 2005 508 2016 335 2006 571 2017 311 2007 402 2018 541 2008 459 2019 687 2009 815 2020 339 2010 466 2021 589 2011 389 2022 436
The Criminal Affairs and Pardon Board at the Ministry of Justice (Direction des affaires criminelles et des graces, DACG) keeps records related to the number of indictments charged in the calendar year in relation to racist, antisemitic and discriminatory offenses. Indictments relating to offences relating to racism Indictments relating principally to racist offences Indictments relating exclusively to racist offences 2001 211 152 115 2002 228 158 115 2003 208 145 105 2004 345 236 165 2005 573 380 253 2006 611 364 275 2007 577 423 306 2008 682 469 344 2009 579 397 288 2010 567 397 298
Attacks 2002 - 2014
The 2002 Lyon car attack was part of a wave of increased attacks on Jews and Jewish targets in France in the early 21st century. Analysts related it to the Second Intifada in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
On January 21, 2006, Ilan Halimi, a young French Jewish man of Moroccan descent was kidnapped by a group called the Gang of Barbarians, led by Youssouf Fofana. Halimi was subsequently tortured over a period of three weeks, resulting in his death.Tale of Torture and Murder Horrifies the Whole of France , Michel Gurfinkiel, The New York Sun, February 22, 2006.
From March 11 to 19, 2012, Mohammed Merah, a French man of Algerian descent born in Toulouse, committed the Toulouse and Montauban shootings, a series of three attacks against French soldiers and civilians in Toulouse and Montauban, in the Midi-Pyrénees region. The last day he attacked a Jewish day school in Toulouse, killing a teacher, Yonatan Sandler and three children (aged 8, 5 & 3), and wounding a teenager. He killed a total of three French Muslim soldiers in Toulouse and Montauban, and seriously wounded a fourth. During the 30-hour police siege at his apartment on March 22, Merah wounded three police men before he was killed by a police sniper.
In 2014, there was a brutal attack that took place in the town of Creteil south-east of Paris. The two victims, a woman aged 19 and her boyfriend, 21, were tied up in his family's flat and the woman was raped. Their lawyer said three men of north African origin, Abdou Salam Koita, Ladje Haidara and Houssame Hatri, had burst into the flat, telling the boyfriend: "You Jews, you have money."
2015 Attacks on Jews had a record high in 2015, the numbers fell 58% in 2016 and fell a further 7% in 2017. In 2018, the first nine months of the year saw a 69% rise in attacks. Despite only representing 1% of the population in France, Jews were the target of 40% of racially or religiously motivated violent acts in 2017. Increases in violent attacks on Jews in France since 2015 are thought to put "the very existence of Jewish communities" in France in doubt.
During the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks, the Porte de Vincennes siege involved a gunman taking hostages at a Kosher supermarket. In the aftermath of the attacks, the French government increased the presence of soldiers outside prominent Jewish buildings.
In the February 2015 Nice stabbing attack soldiers guarding a Jewish community center in Nice were attacked by an Islamist supporter of ISIL wielding a knife.
On 24 October 2015, three Jewish men outside a synagogue in Marseille were stabbed by a man shouting anti-Jewish slogans. One of the victims sustained serious abdominal wounds; he was expected to survive. The assailant was apprehended.
On 18 November 2015 a teacher in Marseille walking on the street was stabbed by three men who shouted anti-Jewish slogans; one of the men wore an ISIS T-shirt. The three men, riding two scooters, had approached the teacher and stabbed him in the arm and in the leg. They fled when a car approached.
2016