In France, Zionist light drives out antisemitism

The Paris protest was against the decision by French authorities who found a murderer of an elderly Jewish woman “not responsible for his actions.”

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Beitar youth movement protest in Paris, France (photo credit: Courtesy)
Beitar youth movement protest in Paris, France
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Israeli flags were seen last Sunday in the streets of Paris during a protest led by the Beitar Youth Movement. Members said that “France is known to be an antisemitic country and it is not a give-in it can protect its citizens in a just and equal minded way as it claims to do.”
The protest is but one of many protests held across France following the ruling that murderer of 65-years-old Sara Halimi, Kobili Traore, was not responsible for his actions because he smoked marijuana before committing the crime.
Beitar Youth Movement emissary in France Nili Pitchon said that the protest was meant to “wake up the Jewish community” and bring back “its pride.”
France had witnessed a wave of antisemitic crimes in recent years, including the 2006 kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi, a 2019 verbal attack on French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut who was called a “dirty Zionist” and the ongoing defacement of Jewish graveyards in the country.
France is facing various issues, including growing lack of faith in the political institutions as demonstrated by the so-called “Yellow Vests” protests and the question of how to integrate new French-citizens who have Muslim heritage.
The 2015 novel Submission by Michel Houellebecq explored these concerns by depicting a possible future in which an Islamic party takes over the leadership of the French nation, in the novel, a Jewish character decides to leave France to build a new life in Israel.
The French protagonist of the novel reflects, “I don’t have an Israel to go to.”