In the presence of a large part of the political class, but without the head of state or the radical left opposition, many French people wanted to send a clear signal against anti-Semitism on Sunday. More than 100,000 people marched in Paris and tens of thousands more across France for the “grand march”.
“For the Republic, against anti-Semitism”: behind this slogan, the head of the procession set off from the square in front of the National Assembly before stopping several times to sing the Marseillaise. Few signs or banners, but the tricolor flags were out.
Gérard Larcher advocates a “citizen surge”
The Esplanade des Invalides, the starting point of the march, remained filled with a compact crowd for a long time. There were precisely 105,000 demonstrators in Paris, according to the police, but also 7,500 in Marseille and 3,000 in Lyon and Strasbourg. In total, the Ministry of the Interior had 182,000 participants in more than 70 cities at the end of the day.
A square of political figures, first and foremost the two heads of Parliament, Yaël Braun-Pivet and Gérard Larcher, at the initiative of this march, as well as Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, and the president of Crif Yonathan Arfi. “We are happy and reassured that the French responded,” said Yaël Braun-Pivet. “Our agenda is the Republic,” summed up his Senate counterpart, advocating a “citizen surge” in the face of the explosion in the number of acts hostile to Jews since the Hamas massacres in Israel on October 7 and the massive military response that followed.
This increase is one of the signs of a feared importation of the conflict. It is a cause for which “everyone should feel concerned”, judged the Chief Rabbi of France Haïm Korsia, regretting that the subject had turned into political fistfighting, “a shame”.
The unexpected support of Edouard Philippe for the RN
“Postures have no place” in this demonstration, Elisabeth Borne warned on Sunday morning, targeting both LFI whose “absence speaks for itself”, and the National Rally whose “presence does not deceive no one.” “We are exactly where we need to be,” retorted Marine Le Pen a few hours later from Les Invalides, castigating the “petty politicking” of her detractors who have for several days been emphasizing the anti-Semitic past of her party.
She also received unexpected support from Edouard Philippe, who, while fighting the RN, does not “sort out the goodwill who want to fight against anti-Semitism”. The presence of the RN was, however, a source of some tension in the parade. A group of left-wing Jewish activists briefly tried to oppose his participation at the start of the demonstration.
Greens, PS and PCF united without LFI
The left-wing parties Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, PS and PCF have chosen to display themselves behind a common banner “against anti-Semitism and all the perpetrators of hatred and racism” in a “republican cordon” approach in the face of the far right, who marched at the back of the procession.
Emmanuel Macron decided not to parade. The president addressed the French on Saturday evening, through a letter in the newspaper The Parisian. He deplored “the unbearable resurgence of unbridled anti-Semitism”. “A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France,” he wrote, launching an appeal for the unity of the country behind “its universalism”. But rebellious France was missing. The radical left party, accused of ambivalence on anti-Semitism, boycotted the demonstration due to the presence of the RN. Jean-Luc Mélenchon affirmed at the end of the day that the organizers had “failed to reproduce the general mobilizations of the past”.
Muslim leaders were also divided, with several organizations deploring that the call to demonstrate did not include “not a word on Islamophobia” and pointing out “the confusions” between Islam and anti-Semitism.