Two years ago I wrote on this platform that France is the most ‘dangerous European country for Jews’ – and so it remains.
Anti-Semitic attacks in 2018 soared by 74 per cent on the previous year and the figures for the beginning of 2019 have revealed a 78 per cent increase on the same period in 2018.
‘Jews, who make up less than one per cent of the population, are subjected to more than half the racist acts committed in France,’ said Francis Kalifat last week. Kalifat, who is president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), believes the number of victims is actually higher. ‘A lot of people don’t make an official complaint,’ he said. ‘Either because it serves no purpose or because they fear reprisals.’
French Jews are right to be scared. Twelve have been killed specifically because of their religion since 2003; the most recent was Sarah Halimi in 2017, battered to death by her Muslim neighbour, Kobili Traoré, whose blows were accompanied by cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’.
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