Three days after the Hamas attacks in Israel, signs of solidarity with the Jewish community increased on Monday in France. The Eiffel Tower was lit up in the colors of Israel and Israeli and French anthems were sung on the Place du Trocadéro.
At the call of Crif, 16,000 people marched in the French capital on Monday evening, according to the police headquarters. A banner “Terrorism, here, there, same fight, support for Israel” was placed at the head of the procession. “It warms my heart but at the same time it hurts to have to come to this so that people in France realize what we experience in Israel,” declares Dana, a 44-year-old Franco-Israeli, who does not did not wish to give his last name.
On arrival at the Trocadéro, which the procession had taken more than two hours to reach from Place Victor Hugo, a few hundred meters away. In the crowd, we talk with emotion about loved ones living in Israel, we greet friends or acquaintances who have come to demonstrate, we debate the geopolitical consequences and we express indignation together at the killings.
Gatherings in major cities in France
Yaël Braun-Pivet, Olivier Véran, Stanislas Guerini, Valérie Pécresse, but also Nicolas Sarkozy or the environmentalist senator Yannick Jadot… Many political figures made the trip to mark their solidarity with Israel.
In Marseille, a city which has one of the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in France, nearly 500 people, mostly elderly, gathered in silence in front of the Prefecture. Five hundred people also in Bordeaux, in front of the great synagogue, 250 in Tours in front of the Yitzhak Rabin stele, in the courtyard of the town hall, a few hundred in Lille.
Earlier in the day, representatives of the Jewish community were received by Gérald Darmanin in Paris. “To touch a Jew is to touch the whole Republic”, declared at the end of the meeting the Minister of the Interior, emphasizing the “great firmness of the State”, with “thousands of police officers, gendarmes and soldiers” mobilized to secure schools and places of worship in particular.
Anti-Semitic acts recorded since Saturday
Since Saturday “around twenty anti-Semitic acts have been recorded” and “ten people” arrested, either for “anti-Semitic remarks or because they threatened places of worship or people who were leaving these places of worship,” added The Minister.
On Saturday, the Minister of the Interior asked the prefects to strengthen the security of Jewish community places, with the visible presence of law enforcement and the reinforcement of the municipal police and the soldiers of Operation Sentinel. The Jewish community in France, the largest in Europe with around 500,000 people, has celebrated several holidays since the start of the Jewish new year which was mid-September.