Elisabeth Borne called for “combat anti-Semitism with all our might”, Monday, February 13, during the annual dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), where she spoke about her family history and in particular the deportation of her father to Auschwitz.
“There are dates that mark a destiny. For my father, but in reality for all my family, it is December 25, 1943., said the Prime Minister whose father, of Jewish faith, was deported to Auschwitz. A survivor, he ended his life in 1972, when his daughter was 11 years old.
“That day, together with my grandfather and my uncles, he was arrested by the Gestapo. Then came the sealed wagons, the orders, the beatings, the humiliations. Drancy, Auschwitz. They were 1,250 at the start. Six came back”said M.me Borne, who was the guest of honor at this traditional CRIF meeting.
Among the survivors, “Some have managed to keep the taste of hope and faith in life. Others don’t. I know it only too well”she continued.
She also said that “in the months following his return from the camps, [son] father had started talking, until he was told that it was better to keep quiet”. “Some wanted to put a blanket of silence on the past”she confided, adding that what had happened “passed there”his father had it for him “written in two letters”.
In front of nearly a thousand guests (politicians, ambassadors, religious, trade unionists, artists, etc.) gathered at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, the head of government called for “to fight, with all our strength, anti-Semitism, wherever it shows itself, wherever it strikes, wherever it hides”.
Slight decline in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2022
Mme Borne recalled his wish “that every student in France” carried out “at least one visit to a place of memory during his schooling”one of the measures of the plan to fight against racism, anti-Semitism and related discrimination that she presented three weeks ago.
She further indicated that“during the year 2022, the number of anti-Semitic incidents fell by more than a quarter compared to 2021”. An allusion to the count recently published by CRIF, based on data from the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ).
“This is progress”she stressed, while calling for “continue to act”. The Prime Minister finally recalled the measures helping victims to file a complaint, and pleaded for the establishment of a “single device, capable of ensuring both the removal of content [haineux en ligne] illicit and then their judicial treatment”.
For his part, the president of CRIF, Yonathan Arfi, recalled the role of education in the fight “against hate”. “Anti-Semitism is also taking on new faces”he said, citing in particular “Islamism”THE “conspiratorial speeches”the “hatred of Israel”. For him, society has, not “an obligation of means, but indeed an obligation of results”.