In
France, (some) Jews are voting far right
Marine Le
Pen’s National Rally is presenting itself as a defender of the country’s Jewish
population.
The
unexpected endorsement reflects the extent to which Le Pen has repositioned her
party since she took it over from her father, a convicted Holocaust denier. |
JULY 5, 2024
4:00 AM CET
BY VICTOR
GOURY-LAFFONT
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-election-2024-some-jews-are-voting-far-right/
PARIS — If
you want an indication of the effectiveness of Marine Le Pen’s efforts to
detoxify her image, look no further than Serge Klarsfeld, a Holocaust survivor
who spent his life hunting down former Nazis.
Presented
with a choice between the hard-left France Unbowed movement and Le Pen’s
far-right National Rally party, the 88-year-old Jewish rights activist said he
would vote for the latter “without hesitation.”
Far-right
parties in Europe have “disavowed antisemitism and support Jews,” Klarsfeld
said in a televised interview ahead of the country’s two-round parliamentary
election on June 30 and July 7.
The
unexpected endorsement reflects the extent to which Le Pen has repositioned her
party since she took it over from her father, a convicted Holocaust denier who
once described the murder of 6 million Jews as “a minor detail” in the history
of World War II.
“Marine Le
Pen’s strategy has been to portray herself as a bulwark against ‘radical
Islamism,’ to protect Jews, women and gays,” said Nonna Mayer, a political
scientist who specializes in the French far right.
French
voters will cast their ballots Sunday in the run-off round of a tight election
in which just a few percentage points of support could determine whether the
National Rally can form the country’s first far-right government.
The snap
vote was triggered by French President Emmanuel Macron after far-right parties
raked in some 37 percent support in June’s European Parliament election; its
result will be seen as a verdict on whether Le Pen has successfully moved her
party into the mainstream ahead of a presidential election expected in 2027.
“Given
France’s past, which includes the Vichy regime and its collaboration with the
Nazis, [Le Pen] knew that antisemitism was a stain on the National Rally’s
image,” Mayer added.
While
accusations of racism and antisemitism continue to dog the National Rally — one
of its candidates stepped down this week after a photo circulating on social
media showed her wearing a swastika-adorned Nazi officer’s cap — Le Pen has
successfully presented herself as a champion of France’s Jews, blaming the
discrimination they face on the country’s large Muslim population.
“The best
shield for our fellow French citizens of Jewish faith today is the National
Rally,” Le Pen said in May. “It’s the only movement with the will, the
conviction and the means to fight Islamist fundamentalism, which is the major
danger facing them.”
While no
polling is available on how French Jews voted in the first round of this week’s
election, results in areas with large Jewish communities suggest support for
the far right is growing.
The National
Rally candidate in one of the electoral districts of Sarcelles, a Parisian
suburb with a large Jewish community, received 27 percent of the vote on
Sunday.
While that’s
lower than the party’s 33 percent support nationwide, it’s nearly double the 15
percent the National Rally garnered two years ago. Support for the party is
generally low in the French capital and the surrounding region.
“We’re
seeing voting patterns where identity is playing a greater role than social
status,” said Patrick Haddad, Sarcelles’ socialist mayor.
While the
hard left did well among Muslims, the far right is gaining among Jews, Haddad
said, adding that this held true not just in Sarcelles but across the country.
The growing
divide reveals how much the war in Gaza has riven the country, with the
National Rally emerging as one of Israel’s biggest boosters and France Unbowed
taking up the Palestinian cause.
A poll
commissioned by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Europe showed that 92
percent of French Jews believe France Unbowed has “contributed” to the rise of
antisemitism, compared to 51 percent who believe the same of the National
Rally.
“Whenever
the question of antisemitism or what might be called the ‘Jewish question’
reemerges in such a way, it’s never a good sign,” said AJC director Simone
Rodan Benzaquen.
On Oct. 7,
the day Hamas attacked Israel, France Unbowed released a statement claiming the
assault had taken place “in the context of Israel’s intensified occupation
policy in Gaza,” and mourning “the Israeli and Palestinian deaths.”
The movement
then focused its European election campaign on its opposition to the ensuing
war in Gaza. Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was accused of downplaying a surge
of anti-Jewish acts in calling antisemitism “residual” in France in a blog post
discussing pro-Palestinian protests.
The party’s
opponents, such as Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti, accused France Unbowed
of adopting a hardline stance on Gaza in a bid to attract Muslim voters, a
majority of whom, polling shows, support Mélenchon’s movement.
Some Jewish
voices have spoken up for France Unbowed. Tsedek, a French Jewish collective
critical of Israeli policies, denounced what it called a “disgraceful campaign
waged by the right and supporters of the State of Israel, aimed at
disqualifying the left or some of its components by accusing them of
anti-Semitism, because of their support for Palestinian rights.”
Klarsfeld,
for his part, remains critical.
Asked
whether his endorsement risked normalizing a party that targets another
religious minority, Muslims, Klarsfeld responded that “Muslims have to take
care of themselves” and have not “manifested their attachment to France,” Le
Monde reported.
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