VZCZCXYZ0005
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHFR #1799/01 1271703
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 071703Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6973

UNCLAS PARIS 001799 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREF SCUL SMIG SOCI FR
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR SPECIAL ENVOY FOR COMBATING 
ANTI-SEMITISM RICKMAN 
 
 
¶1.  (U) SUMMARY.:  Government and NGO sources report an 
overall increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2006, with a 
much sharper increase in physical attacks on persons.  More 
recently, March and April witnessed a spate of anti-Semitic 
crimes including cemetery profanations and physical attacks. 
Public authorities including at the highest levels have 
reacted swiftly to address anti-Semitic crimes, making 
strenuous efforts to apprehend guilty parties and to support 
victims.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  (U) The U.S Embassy in Paris welcomes DRL/Special Envoy 
to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism (SEAS) Gregg Rickman and 
Deputy Director Lisa Sherman.  This cable provides an 
overview of France,s Jewish population and of anti-Semitism 
in France. 
 
DEMOGRAPHICS 
 
¶3.  (U) There are about 600,000 Jews living in France, just 
under one percent of the total population. France has the 
third largest Jewish community in the world, behind that of 
Israel and the United States.  About 375,000 Jews reside in 
the Paris metropolitan region.  French Jews are mostly of 
North African origin and, according to press reports, at 
least 60 percent are not highly observant, celebrating at 
most the High Holy Days.  The large majority of observant 
Jews are Orthodox, with a small number of Conservative and 
Reform congregations. 
 
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
 
¶4.  (U) By the early 1900s, improved conditions for Jews in 
France helped to prompt a wave of Jewish immigration largely 
from Eastern Europe.  Jews became leading contributors to 
French art and culture during this time.  France in the 1930s 
elected its first Jewish Prime Minister, Leon Blum.  During 
the WWII occupation of France by Germany, the 
collaborationist Vichy Government established the 
Commissariat General aux Questions Juives (the General 
Commissariat for Jewish Questions), which worked with the 
Gestapo to deport 76,000 French Jews to the concentration 
camps.  In total, a quarter of France's Jewish population of 
300,000 was murdered during the Holocaust.  Many survivors 
resettled in France after the war. 
 
¶5.  (U) In the decades after WWII, many Jews (often already 
French citizens) migrated from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia 
to metropolitan France.  (Arab nationalism in the former 
colonies along with tension deriving from the Arab-Israeli 
conflict had triggered a resurgence of anti-Semitism in those 
countries.)  France was a strong supporter of Israel in the 
years following Israeli independence, voting for recognition 
of Israel at the UN and providing military and technical 
support.  After the Six-Day War, France adopted its 
"politique Arab," a pro-Arab orientation that has endured 
until this day.  Over the last two years, France has 
attempted to improve its relations with Israel without 
alienating its Arab friends. 
 
ANTI-SEMITISM: STATISTICS 
 
¶6.  (U) The National Consultative Commission for Human Rights 
(CNCDH), in conjunction with the Ministry of the Interior, 
reported in March 2007 that 2006 witnessed a slight increase 
in anti-Semitic acts ) 541 in 2006, a six percent increase 
from the 508 reported events in 2005.  (2004 remains the 
worst year in the last decade, with 974 reported anti-Semitic 
incidents.)  A larger proportion of 2006 anti-Semitic acts 
were violent ) 134 over against 99 in 2005 (a 35 percent 
increase).  In a parallel study, the Service for the 
Protection of the Jewish Community announced on February 26, 
2007 that 2006 witnessed larger increases in reported 
anti-Semitic activity in France, with 213 anti-Semitic acts 
(up 40 percent from 134 in 2005) and 158 anti-Semitic threats 
or insults (up seven percent from 148 in 2005) for a total of 
371 episodes (up 24 percent from 2005).  These statistics 
indicate a net increase in anti-Semitic episodes for the 
months following the murder of Ilan Halimi by young thugs in 
February and the Israel-Hezbollah War during the summer.  The 
Representative Council of Jewish Organizations (CRIF) said in 
a subsequent communique that "the essential and most worrying 
aspect (of the report)" lies in a "45-per cent increase in 
physical attacks" on people.  Recorded incidents returned to 
lower levels during the final months of 2006, a trend that 
continued into early 2007. 
 
RECENT NOTEWORTY ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS 
 
¶7.  (U) March and April 2007 witnessed a spate of 
well-publicized anti-Semitic incidents: 
--On March 1 in a radio interview former Prime Minister 
Raymond Barre appeared to justify the collaboration of 
Vichy-era French government officials with the Nazi 
 
occupiers' deportation of French Jews and defended right-wing 
extremist Bruno Gollnisch's right to voice opinions that 
falsify the magnitude of Nazi killing of Jews.  French 
anti-racism NGO, SOS Racism, demanded that legal action be 
taken against Barre. 
-- On March 20, the Global News Service for the Jewish People 
(JTA) reported that more than 7,000 French Jews signed a 
petition asking for political asylum in the United States 
because of anti-Semitism in France.  News of the petition was 
met with outrage by most Jewish community spokespersons. 
"This petition is bizarre, stupid and out of place," said 
CRIF Director Hiam Musicant, in an interview with Israel's 
Ma'ariv newspaper.  "I don,t feel threatened in France, and 
the authorities are doing everything they can to protect the 
Jewish community.  French Jews don,t need this kind of 
petition." 
--In late March a Nice-area daily published an article 
detailing the continued existence of Vichy-era legal 
prohibitions on renting or selling property to Jews. 
According to Martine Ouaknine, former Nice-Cote d'Azur CRIF 
regional president, it was regrettable that the 
discriminatory co-ownership settlements were still found in 
older contractual agreements because of the painful memories 
they evoked; however, she explained that the measures 
themselves became null and void immediately after the war and 
have not been applied to discriminate against Jewish property 
owners since that time. 
--Also in late March, vandals desecrated fifty-one Jewish 
Tombs in a Lille cemetery, prompting widespread condemnation 
and a large-scale police investigation into what one 
government prosecutor called "the largest event of this sort 
ever to happen in the region."  The vandalism elicited a 
solidarity march in the cemetery attended by a thousand 
people. 
--On April 19, Lille Rabbi Elie Dahan, who presided over a 
well-attended commemoration ceremony at the cemetery 
following the Jewish tombs' desecration and who had been an 
active spokesman for the Jewish community during the 
subsequent police investigation, was verbally and physically 
assaulted in Paris. 
--On April 21, vandals damaged 180 graves, a quarter of which 
were Jewish, in the main Le Havre cemetery of Saint-Marie. 
-- On April 30, state prosecutors opened an official 
investigation for armed robbery and violence by a group for 
racist motives after an April 26 attack against a 22-year old 
Jewish student in a Marseille metro station parking area. 
According to the victim, two men physically assaulted her, 
including slashing her tee-shirt with a knife and inscribing 
a swastika on her torso before fleeing with her purse and 
cell phone.  The attack has since received surprisingly 
little national media attention in comparison with coverage 
of other anti-Semitic crimes. 
 
JEWISH EMIGRATION 
 
¶8.  (U) According to the Director of the Jewish Agency for 
Israel (JA), Jewish emigration from France to Israel (the 
only emigration for which statistics are readily available), 
declined in 2006, down to 2,900 from 3,500 in 2005 but up 
somewhat from preceding years (2,483 in 2004 and 2,080 in 
2003).  This year, for the same period, the JA notes a 10 
percent increase in requests.  According to press reports, 
about 76,000 Jews emigrated from France to Israel between 
1948 and mid-2005.  According to the JA Director, Jewish 
emigrants from France to other countries are far less 
numerous, numbering "in the dozens" only.  The JA has no 
record of how many French Jews may return to France.  While 
we have no way of measuring emigration of French Jews to the 
U.S. and Canada, there has been over the years a small but 
steady flow of French Jews to such magnet cities as Los 
Angeles, Miami and Montreal.  Note: The JA's information 
contradicts March 11, 2007 Miami Herald reporting that French 
Jews are leaving in the thousands and relocating in South 
Florida and other U.S. cities. 
 
THE CHANGING FACE OF ANTI-SEMITISM: JEWISH RESPONSES 
 
¶9.  (SBU) As the reporting bears out, anti-Semitism exists in 
France, but other considerations make assessing its true 
dimensions difficult.  French Jews are part of a society with 
an open and extensive media environment in which every 
reported act of anti-Semitism receives ample media treatment. 
 A traditional anti-Semitism of the kind explicitly 
represented by Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front Party and 
implicitly by Raymond Barre's comments has receded but not 
disappeared.  A new anti-Israeli form of anti-Semitism, to 
which some immigrants of Muslim (black and Arab) background 
are particularly susceptible, appears to be the generator of 
most anti-Semitic incidents.  That said, there is much debate 
about the extent to which French Jews, in their daily lives, 
experience anti-Semitism.  Much appears to depend on the life 
situation of each individual, his/her assimilation into the 
larger French community, and, most important, socio-economic 
 
factors.  For poorer Jews, especially in some low-income, 
mixed Muslim-Jewish suburbs (usually outnumbered 
significantly by Muslim residents), there is a generalized 
sense of vulnerability, to which a perception of 
anti-Semitism is a contributing factor.  Unsurprisingly, the 
fact that there is a readily available alternative * Israel 
* means that a certain percentage will decide to join family 
and start a new life, or send some family members, or at 
least buy property.  Others have the same option * or seek 
the same option * in the U.S. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Anti-Semitism is for some a * or even the * 
factor contributing to a decision to emigrate.  For others, 
it is one consideration among many, including the classic 
motivation for emigration, particularly to the U.S. * to 
improve one's lot and to offer a better future to the next 
generation * a rationale that also applies to the 350,000 
French men and women who have left for the U.K.  French Jews, 
particularly those from North Africa who have preserved a 
strong Jewish identity and have themselves been in France 
only for two generations, may also be psychologically better 
able to make the leap of imagining themselves leaving the 
country and becoming Israelis or Americans.  In short, the 
national crisis of self-confidence and malaise that France 
has experienced in recent years, along with a sluggish 
economy and high unemployment, could also explain at least 
part of ongoing emigration of Jews from France. 
 
GOVERNMENT ACTION AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM 
 
¶11.  (U) Senior government officials up to and including 
President Chirac have strongly denounced anti-Semitism.  The 
annual CRIF dinner guest list reads like a political "Who,s 
Who" of France.  Last year, the 800 attendees included 
Nicolas Sarkozy, Dominique de Villepin, Michele Alliot-Marie, 
Philippe Douste-Blazy, Francois Hollande and Dominique 
Strauss-Kahn.  Throughout his term as Interior Minister, 
president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy took an active public role in 
denouncing and combating anti-Semitism wherever he 
encountered it, including personally overseeing the 
dismantlement last year of the web site operated by the 
anti-Semitic group, "Tribe K." 
 
¶12.  (U) Following Ilan Halimi,s murder in February 2006, 
Prime Minister de Villepin highlighted recent and planned 
government efforts to combat anti-Semitism in an address to 
CRIF representatives.  These efforts included: 
--Expedited processing ("comparution immediate") for those 
committing anti-Semitic crimes. 
--Guaranteed prosecution and more severe punishments for 
perpetrators of anti-Semitic crimes, both involving physical 
aggression and involving damage to property. 
--Provisions introduced in January 2006 empowering the French 
Broadcasting Authority (CSA) to refuse to license a channel 
carrying anti-Semitic messages (as in the case of al-Manar). 
--Better communication between government authorities and 
religious communities, including improved cooperation between 
the police and volunteers from the Jewish Community 
Protection Service. 
--Expanded training of the judiciary at the Legal Service 
Training College to include better preparation on 
anti-Semitism issues. 
--A planned Ministry of Education anti-Semitism reference 
package for teachers and school heads. 
--An updated Ministry of Justice cyber-crime guide that will 
include specific instructions for combating anti-Semitic 
propaganda. 
--The development of video surveillance in areas around the 
most sensitive buildings, particularly schools and places of 
worship. 
--Plans to establish an Internet contact point for reporting 
anti-Semitic or racist messages on the Internet. 
 
¶13.  (U) The upshot is that the reality of anti-Semitism in 
France is complex and elusive.  The variety of perspectives 
you will hear during your visit will provide you with the raw 
material to refine your own assessments.  We look forward to 
your visit and the opportunity it provides us to learn more 
about anti-Semitism in France. 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
 
STAPLETON