“Are you going there or aren’t you going there? Do you know so-and-so will be there? » In recent days, the French political scene has been arguing over an event: the march against anti-Semitism on Sunday in Paris. And faced with such a sensitive and fundamental subject, the class photo is hardly attractive.
Initially invited, the RN jumped at the opportunity to place itself on the right side of the Republican arc. On the left, the unease is palpable and the choice difficult, between defense of the cause and rejection of the far right. So much so that we almost no longer talk about anti-Semitism itself. Would the march be the perfect illustration of the unions and fractures of the current political landscape? 20 minutes talks about it with Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist and researcher associated with Iris.
The photo of the union already spoiled by political quarrels?
Let’s quickly do the math. The far right, embodied by Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, will be present but not necessarily well received by part of the procession. LR and LREM will be in the lead, the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, and the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, being at the origin of the demonstration. The union of the left is leaving in dispersed order: the PS, EELV and the PCF will be present, provided they distance themselves from the extreme right, LFI will not come. “We do not have a good picture of the state of the political spectrum in the face of anti-Semitism,” regrets Jean-Yves Camus.
“On the situation in Gaza, everyone can position themselves differently, but that is not the purpose of the march,” he recalls, pointing out “1,000 anti-Semitic acts in one month” in the country. “It is a cause that must bring everyone together, without being parasitized by internal political conflicts, because in the end, it is the victims of anti-Semitism who are the losers,” he insists. The political scientist appears uneasy about the treatment of the RN. “If RN elected officials, who are representatives of the Nation, arrive at this march and cannot access it, what happens? », he asks.
Can the RN emerge victorious from this sequence?
Is Marine Le Pen’s party already a “beneficiary” of this sequence? “Of course it’s a victory for the RN, that was the trap! And it will close more if on Sunday, things do not happen calmly and in harmony,” insists Jean-Yves Camus. For the political scientist, “in the logic of institutions, the republican arc is all the parties which sit in the national representation”, which includes the RN. Too late to exclude the far-right party. “We can dissolve a movement that makes up 2%, not a party that is in the second round of the presidential election,” summarizes the Iris researcher.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella having “Islamism among their main enemies”, the Hamas attack represents an “extraordinary opportunity” for the party’s normalization strategy, via support for Israel. But the political scientist notes two ambiguities in the RN’s relationship with Jewish people. On the one hand the desire to be “a shield”. “The Jews of France are not asking for a shield but for rights.” On the other, the past of the RN, Jordan Bardella having recently estimated that “Jean-Marie Le Pen was not anti-Semitic”. “There has never been a real formal declaration from the RN on its past”, which remains “a drag” for 2027.
What do the divisions of the left say about the state of the Nupes?
Let’s go to the other side of the chessboard. The values of humanism, living together, the fight against discrimination, all of this should be an easy subject for a normal left. But given the differences on the march, “the leadership of the PS should have looked twice before embarking on the Nupes”, because “signs of incompatibility with LFI existed”, believes Jean-Yves Camus. Olivier Faure called on “all French people” to march, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced a meeting of “friends of unconditional support for the massacre”.
“Essentializing the Jewish community by making it the transmission belt for Israeli policy is not worthy,” says Jean-Yves Camus. Even on the side of the left responding to the call, disagreement remains. For the Ecologists, “always present” against anti-Semitism, “Reconquest and the RN are not welcome”, while Fabien Roussel, first to say that “the Nupes is dead”, simply wants to “find another place” in the procession so as not to be “alongside” the RN. After the union in 2022, it is the return of the “irreconcilable lefts”. And the fight against anti-Semitism in all this?