“There have always been forms of anti-Semitism in France,” said Edouard Philippe this Sunday on Radio J. “But the attitude of a certain number of current leaders, in my opinion, could have decapitated a certain number of people. Was finally able to give the feeling that we had the right to express our anti-Semitism. That it was something acceptable, something understandable.” The head of the Horizons party continued: “France has experienced these temptations. And we know where these temptations lead: they lead to the abject. This is not what we want to be, what France wants to be.”
The former tenant of Matignon (2017-2020) was notably questioned about the position of officials of France Insoumise on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, refusing to qualify the Palestinian movement as “terrorist”. “It’s incomprehensible and pointless,” he reacted, recalling that “Hamas, its objective, is the total eradication of Israel and Jews from the region.”
“I know very well that at LFI there are people who are not anti-Semitic and undoubtedly some who are”
“I cannot generalize, I know very well that at LFI there are people who are not anti-Semitic and undoubtedly some who are,” he qualified, before adding that this “does not correspond not the vision of the Republic that I have (…) when we refuse to qualify things.”
Edouard Philippe also underlined that “a lot of Muslims in France are horrified by what they see”. “And there is a part – and it must also be said – who by identification with the war, (…) by hatred of the other, by a totally obscurantist reading of a certain number of texts, choose to express their anti-Semitism. It is unacceptable, and it is criminally reprehensible, we must fight against it,” he argued.
Since October 7, the date of the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, France has experienced a resurgence of anti-Semitic acts, since 857 have been recorded, i.e. “as many in three weeks” as in “the entire past year”, according to the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin on Tuesday.