How Anti-Semitism Became a Defining Principle of the French Far Left

At the turn of the last century, today's Left would have been anti-Dreyfusards, which was then the defining characteristic of the Right.

From TheEuropean Conservative

By Edouard Chaplault-Maestracci

According to La France Insoumise, Israel is the perpetrator of genocide, while Hamas terrorists are freedom fighters.

Unthinkable in 2006 when Marine Le Pen was denied entry in Israel, Jordan Bardella, the current president of Rassemblement National (RN), has been invited by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party to visit the hallowed Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. This gesture sharply contrasts with the expelling of French Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan of La France Insoumise (LFI) from Israel a month ago.

The official invitation to the RN president is the perfect symbol of a major shift in terms of antisemitism in French politics. Previously considered a far-right trademark, antisemitic manifestations have progressively moved to the left until becoming a campaign argument for La France Insoumise, the party that also dominates the left-wing coalition group called Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front.) 

This ‘evolution’ was clearly highlighted by the reactions to the October 7th terrorist attacks in Israel, but it began much earlier.

The rebranding of the Rassemblement National

In September 1987, Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the right-wing Front National (National Front), the precursor of RN, declared during a radio interview that the gas chambers were a mere “detail of the history of the Second World War.” This statement, among many other controversial declarations, had for many years constituted a heavy burden for his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who was elected as National Front president in 2011. Since then, she has led an arduous campaign to rebrand the party and to get rid of the antisemitic element that characterized it.

Not only did she rename the party, but she also made the decision to exclude her father from it. Since then, the RN has become reputable and publicly recognised as a republican party, respectful of public institutions. 

On 12 November 2023, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella both took part in the great march against antisemitism in Paris, unlike Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of LFI. More broadly, the RN has been a consistent supporter of Israel since the October 7th terror attacks. 

Hence the recent statements by Serge Klarsfeld, the well-known Holocaust survivor and Nazi-hunter, a long-time opponent of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who said that Rassemblement National “has changed and has become reputable” and that he would vote for them “without hesitation” if having to choose between them and LFI. He further added that “when there is an anti-Jewish party and a pro-Jewish party, I will vote for the pro-Jewish party.”

Stripped of its old antisemitic undertones, the RN now considers Israel a full member of the West and an outpost of crucial importance in the West’s fight against Islamic terrorism. 

Since October 7th, the Jewish electorate has been shifting towards RN, alienated by the anti-Israeli rhetoric of LFI, a rhetoric that has fuelled a surge in antisemitism in France. Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, stated that Jews “have no trust in La France Insoumise”, which is a “real turn in our relationship with parts of the Left.”

Antisemitism as a leftist electoral strategy

Nowadays, what we call the “vile beast” (la bête immonde) has moved resolutely left. Antisemitism has become a defining principle of LFI, along with its shameful support of, not to say militant commitment to, Hamas. In doing so, the far-left movement seeks to cultivate its communitarianism and to grow its electoral base among radical Muslim voters. 

French Muslims have indeed become the new prospective voter base of the French Left since they lost the workers’ support to RN. Having always basked in supporting minorities, no matter which, the Left needed a new electoral booty. Following its customary logic, the Left was looking for a new minority to depict as oppressed. 

For LFI, the Israeli response to the October 7th massacres represented an opportunity that had to be grasped. But the movement had always been based on anti-West feelings, so it is no wonder that they added Jew-hatred to their campaign arsenal. Instead of condemning the terror attacks, the far-left party expressed its support for Hamas. Its deputy president Danièle Obono declared that Hamas was not a terrorist organisation but rather a “resistance movement.” In the party’s view, Hamas is the victim, the terrorists are freedom fighters, and Israel is depicted as the criminal state.

This reversed reasoning led to the hiring of Rima Hassan, a French Palestinian activist, for the 2024 parliamentary elections campaign. Hassan stated nothing less than that “Israel is a monstrosity.” Unashamedly proclaiming her support for Hamas, Hassan, viewed by many as Hamas’ emissary, considers the terror group’s actions as “legitimate” and refuses to describe them as terrorists.

In addition, leader of LFI Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his ‘troops’ are tirelessly repeating antisemitic insults and statements. Hence their regular reference to a “genocide” in Gaza or Rima Hassan’s recent sharing of a post reading “From Auschwitz to Gaza, never again!” (D’Auschwitz à Gaza, plus jamais ça !) along with a personal message wishing followers a good day. Of all dates, the post was published on January 27th, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

The misuse of the term genocide and the references to ‘ethnic cleansing’ are telling. They show the Left’s propensity to playing with words and its pronounced taste for controversy. To brush aside the accusations of antisemitism, LFI often uses the term ‘anti-Zionism,’ trying to disguise their Jew-hatred as a geopolitical stance to make it more palatable. This strategy is odious given the fact that anti-Zionism, even if it is not criminalized under French law, is akin to antisemitism, considering that it implies that Israel should not exist.

Partly due to LFI’s incendiary rhetoric, antisemitism is no longer taboo and is gaining ground in France. Between the October 7th terrorist attacks in 2023 and October 7th, 2024 the number of recorded antisemitic incidents had increased by 192%.

In 1896, Theodor Herzl, the Hungarian-Austrian Jewish journalist and jurist, laid the foundations for the modern Zionist movement with the publishing of The Jewish State. In this manifesto, he came to the conclusion that Jews needed their own state in order to avoid persecution—the very same state that the French radical Left today regards as a “monstrosity.”

It is in this context that the chief rabbi of the Grande Synagogue in Paris has said that “it is clear that there is no future for Jews in France.” Many Jews are indeed considering doing Aliyah, that is, moving to Israel. The number one political force that could change that sentiment is Rassemblement National. As Alain Finkielkraut, a prominent French Jewish intellectual, has put it, RN is “a way to stop antisemitism.”