2023-11-11 07:00:35
PARIS. It has caused a storm of reactions in France her intention Marine Le Pen to join tomorrow’s demonstration against him antisemitism in Paris, after her critics accuse her far-right party of failing to renounce its anti-Semitic heritage. Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne, several parties and citizens plan to take part in Sunday’s march, which will also be attended by Le Pen. The other parties, however, consider that her participation is an attempt to exploit him Israel-Hamas war in order to establish itself in the consciousness of systemic voters. Her party founder and father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, had been convicted of hate speech and downplaying the Holocaust. His opposite daughter, a 2027 presidential contender, has gone to great lengths to remake the party’s image, ousting her father and changing its name from National Front to National Alarm.
The government spokesman insisted that Le Pen had no place in a large citizens’ march, although he added that everyone was free to join. Since the Hamas attack, 1,159 anti-Semitic incidents have been recorded in the country to date, almost three times the number of attacks against French Jews in 2022. The Jewish umbrella organization called her an unwanted person at the event. However, reactions to the presence of the other far-right leader, Eric Zemur, who mainly targets Muslims in his speeches, accusing them of undermining the French way of life, were subdued.
On the contrary, Serge Klarsfeld, a well-known Nazi hunter, called her participation positive. In an interview with the “Figaro” newspaper, he recalled that persecution by his organization led to convictions of Le Pen. “For me, the DNA of the Far Right is anti-Semitism. When I see a great party born from the Far Right abandoning anti-Semitism and moving towards democratic values, I am happy.”
Many of the anti-Semitic incidents in recent weeks such as Stars of David painted by strangers outside Jewish homes attributed by the French authorities to a Russian fingerprint. The 250 blue stars are being investigated by French police to determine whether the graffiti is anti-Semitic and whether the act was organized from abroad. The country’s foreign ministry blamed Russia, saying a network of bots mass-posted the Star of David photos to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“This new operation of Russian digital interference against France demonstrates the persistence of the opportunistic, irresponsible strategy aimed at exploiting international crises to sow confusion and create tension in public debate in France and Europe,” the statement said. The bots are associated with a Russian network, Recent Reliable News, and are also known as Doppelgänger.
Finally, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the recent outbreaks of violence in the country following the shootings of two Jewish schools in Montreal and clashes between students in the same city. The Jewish schools reported finding bullet marks at their entrance gates Thursday morning, with no reports of injuries and unclear if the two incidents are related. On Wednesday, students were injured and one arrested following clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups at Concordia University. “Violence, hatred, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and scenes like those we saw at Concordia University or shootings at Jewish schools overnight, all of these are unacceptable.”
#France #constellation #antiSemitism