France has ‘no lessons to take’ from US on tackling antisemitism, says minister | France
Cabinet ministers and Jewish groups said that France had no less lessons to take lessons from the United States to combat anti -Semitism, because Washington’s ambassador to Paris was called after the government was accused of doing enough to hate crimes against the Jews.
Jewish Charles Kushner was ordered by Emmanuel Macron to report to the Foreign Ministry on Monday after writing a letter criticizing “sufficient lack of action ıyla in order to confront the“ dramatic rise ında in anti -Semitism in France.
Kushner, the son -in -law of Donald Trump, said in a letter on the Washington Post on Sunday.
The Minister called the French President, Macron’s promise that France would officially recognize the Palestinian state in the UN in September, and called on the law of hate crime and reduce Israel’s criticism, saying that it further fueled the anti -Semitic events in France.
French diplomatic sources told Agency-France Presse that the US Embassy has joined the ministry instead of Chargé d’Affares since Kushner has not been in Paris on Monday. The call of an ambassador is considered as a declaration of official and public discontent of the host government.
The French Interior Ministry said on Monday that the number of anti -Semitic actions recorded in France in the first six months of 2025 decreased 27% compared to the same period last year, but remained significant higher than 2023.
The ministry said the police had carried out 646 antisemitic action from January to July, and almost two -thirds targeting people and the rest of the buildings. France is home to the largest Jewish population in Western Europe with about half a million people.
Among the recent events, French prosecutors placed the ruler of an amusement park that refused to enter 150 young Israeli tourists under the investigation of suspicion of discrimination based on ethnicity or nationality.
The police also investigates the cutting of an olive tree at the beginning of this month, erected out of Paris in memory of a young Jewish man who was tortured in 2006. Macron promised to punish the perpetrators for anti -Semitic “hate ..
The US refused to withdraw Kushner’s claims on Monday. “We are standing next to your comments,” said Tommy Pigott, spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Ambassador Kushner is our US government representative in France and doing a great job.”
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Kushner’s comments are unacceptable and that the ambassadors were sent to intervene in the internal affairs of the countries where they were sent and violated international law, which requires them to violate them “allies”.
The ministry said that on October 7, 2023, Hamas’s attacks on Israel were “a fact that we have disappeared, but that the French authorities respond“ with total commitment ”was the increase in anti -Semitic actions in France.
On Monday, French Equality Minister Aurore Bergé said that the anti -Semitic events in the West reached “absolutely unbearable levels, but the government’s struggle against anti -Jewish hate crimes was“ open ..
He added that the problem was “too important to be used as a diplomatic bargaining chip”. Foreign Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin condemned the statements by the US Ambassador to “wrong and unacceptable”.
France, “I need to take any lessons,” France said on anti -Semitism. France, with the rise of anti -Jewish actions, “never stopped fighting,” he said.
Patrick Klugman, a lawyer for several French victims of the October 7 attacks, said that anti -Semitism in France reached the historical levels, but defended the French government and did not teach Washington to Paris.
“In the last six years, no antisemitic murder has been committed in France in the last six years, unfortunately several people occurred in the United States. Contrast is striking,” he said. “No country is in a position to teach others, all of them should review their approaches.”
Alain Jakubowicz, the lawyer and honorary chairman of the League against an anti -commercial and anti -Semitism (Licra), added that France has no lessons to learn from the United States, but that antisemitism is a “real problem in the country.
“We lived during an anti -Semitic summer, this is clear,” he said. “A new event every day. Attacks buildings, people and symbols.”
