The minister in charge of worship is satisfied. Gérald Darmanin announced on Wednesday evening the decline of “25%” in anti-Semitic acts recorded in France during the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of last year.
Coming to inaugurate a synagogue in Levallois-Perret, in the Hauts-de-Seine, the Minister of the Interior affirmed that there had been “227 anti-Semitic acts” committed in the first six months of the current year, i.e. ” for the first time, a decrease of 25%” compared to the same period of the previous year (298 anti-Semitic acts). He specified that, of this total, “50% (were) physical acts of an anti-Semitic nature”.
“We let too much happen”
Gérald Darmanin also felt that there was “no distinction between anti-Semitic acts and hatred of Israel”. “We have to say it and say it again,” insisted the minister, who was warmly applauded. “The same people who denounce Israel and the same people who denounce the faults – and I put quotes – of the Jews are the same people who denounce the police. Sometimes extremes come together. The Minister of the Interior also emphasized “the great fear of Jews in France, who see physically, not just culturally, the fear of the other (…) because we have allowed too much to happen”.
He also argued that “French secularism (was) not the negation of religions” and “it is not neutrality in the public space”. “We can always wear kippas in the streets of France,” he added, promising that no “republican law would prohibit it”. “There is no secularism without freedom of worship and no freedom of worship without a place of worship”, but “if freedom of worship is almost absolute, it is not absolute to the point of annihilating the worship of others “.
1,659 anti-religious acts in 2021
The inauguration of this synagogue comes the day after a call from the minister to the prefects and heads of the police and the gendarmerie for “reinforced vigilance” around Jewish places of worship as several religious holidays are about to begin. According to figures from the Ministry of the Interior cited last February by MoDem MP Isabelle Florennes, there were “for the year 2021 a total of 1,659 anti-religious acts recorded, including 857 anti-Christian acts, 589 anti-Semitic acts and 213 anti-Muslim acts”.