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Antisemitism in France is the expression through words or actions of an ideology of hatred of Jews on French soil.
Jews were present in Roman Gaul, but information is limited before the fourth century. As the Roman Empire became Christianized, restrictions on Jews began and many emigrated, some to Gaul. In the Middle Ages, France was a center of Jewish learning, but over time, persecution increased, including multiple expulsions and returns.
During the French Revolution in the late 18th century, on the other hand, France was the first country in Europe to emancipate its Jewish population. Antisemitism still occurred in cycles, reaching a high level in the 1890s, as shown during the Dreyfus affair, and in the 1940s, under German occupation and the Vichy regime.
During World War II, the Vichy government collaborated with Nazi occupiers to deport a large number of both French Jews and foreign Jewish refugees to concentration camps.[1] Another 110,000 French Jews were living in the colony of French Algeria.[2] By the war's end, 25% of the Jewish population of France had perished in the Holocaust, though this was a lower proportion than in most other countries under Nazi occupation.[3][4] The French Jewish population increased dramatically during the 1950s/60s, as Jews from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia emigrated to France in large numbers following the independence of those countries.
France today has the third largest Jewish population in the world, behind those of Israel and the United States. However, since 2000, there has been a significant increase in assaults on Jewish people and property, giving rise to a debate about "new antisemitism", with many Jews no longer feeling safe in France. Since 2010 or so, more French Jews have been moving to Israel in response to rising antisemitism in France.[5]
- ^ "France". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
- ^ Blumenkranz, Bernhard (1972). Histoire des Juifs en France. Toulouse: Privat. p. 376.
- ^ "Le régime de Vichy: Le Bilan de la Shoah en France" [The Vichy regime: The balance sheet of the Shoah in France]. bseditions.fr. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
- ^ Croes, Marnix. "The Holocaust in the Netherlands and the Rate of Jewish Survival" (PDF). Yad Vashem. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 October 2017.
- ^ Hall, John (25 January 2016). "Jews are leaving France in record numbers amid rising antisemitism and fears of more Isis-inspired terror attacks". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022.