The
survey, carried out by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights
(CNCDH), revealed on Thursday the French were more tolerant to minorities
compared to previous years.
The annual report counted 335 antisemitic incidents in 2016 compared to
808 the previous year — the sharpest drop on record since 2001, when the SPCJ
security group of the Jewish community documented a 71% decrease to 219 cases.
Data by SPCJ, which has not published its annual report, usually correspond
with those published by the commission.
The commission also reported a 57% drop in anti-Muslim attacks to a
total of 182 incidents in 2016.
According to the report, the decrease in attacks of Jews “is primarily
due to security measures applied by the authorities as part of the Vigipirate
plan.” The plan, which involves the deployment of thousands of troops around
Jewish institutions and heavily Jewish neighborhoods across the country, was
initiated in 2015 following the slaying of four Jews at a kosher store near
Paris by an Islamist.
The report questioned the “new antisemitism thesis” proffered by the
National Bureau of Vigilance Against antisemitism, a nongovernmental watchdog
group run by former policemen, that most antisemitic attacks in France since
2000 have been committed by people with an immigrant background from Muslim
countries who target Jews over Israel’s actions.
Scholars of antisemitism have termed the phenomenon “new antisemitism,”
describing a situation in which the ancient hatred of Jews is justified as a
political act of opposition to Israel’s policies or existence.
Mohammed Merah, a jihadist who murdered four Jews in Toulouse in 2012,
has said he was acting to avenge the deaths of children in Gaza, as did Amedy
Coulibaly, the Paris kosher shop killer who shot four hostages in 2015.
The report, however, did not mention religiously motivated attacks on
Jews by Muslims.
“A significant part of the antisemitic
acts (actions and threats) pertain to neo-Nazi ideology, whereas in most other
cases the perpetrators’ motivations are difficult to ascertain,” it said.
“Antisemitic biases persist,
linking Jews to money, power and condemning them for their attachment to their
community and to Israel.” These “traditional prejudices introduce nuance to the
theory of ‘a new antisemitism’ of its own, polarized by the question of Israel
and Zionism,” the authors wrote.
If such a phenomenon exists, they added, “based on criticism of Israel
and its role in the conflict, then it pertains to a minority” of the cases in
the report, the document reads.
Despite fluctuations, the volume of antisemitic attacks in France, which
in the 1990s comprised several dozens of incidents annually, has increased
significantly in France since 2000, when Palestinians launched their second
intifada, or uprising, against Israel. It has remained in the hundreds ever
since.
The report also included surveys on the level of acceptance in society
of Jews, Muslims and Roma. Jews emerged as the most accepted minority in the
survey, with 81% of hundreds of respondents relating to them in positive terms.
