OPINION:
Beginning in 1940, France, acting through its puppet government in Vichy, adopted a series of laws, rules and regulations that were intended to isolate, segregate and ultimately eliminate all Jews living in France.
The process was a slow and insidious one. Through a steady demonization of Jews, increasingly virulent measures were imposed on members of the Jewish community that slowly whittled away at the rights that had been granted to Jews in the early days of the French Revolution.
In 1791, in a dramatic show of tolerance and a rejection of long-held prejudices, the French National Assembly declared that Jews were equal citizens of France with all the rights of other citizens of that nation. For the first time in modern European history, Jews proudly stood side by side with their non-Jewish neighbors as equals.
Despite a roller-coaster ride of social prejudice over the course of 150 years, the issue of Jewish legal equality remained unquestioned until the Germans marched into France in 1940 and provided cover to those who had never fully accepted the notion of Jewish equality. Within weeks of the German conquest of France, the puppet government began to impose discriminatory legislation against Jews.
The measures began with a deprivation of citizenship for all foreign-born Jews who had attained that status after 1927. In the midst of war and occupation, many may have thought that it was best not to trust foreigners, especially German-born foreigners (many of whom, even though Jewish, may have been thought to harbor latent loyalties to their former country). Thus, the law was implemented without much objection, even by members of the old-line French Jewish community. The slide down a slippery slope had begun.
Steadily, prohibitions piled on. Characterized as warmongers and profiteers, Jews became an easy target for those promoting blatantly antisemitic legislation. After having been forced to wear a yellow star on all outer garments to be more readily identifiable and therefore made to appear different, strange and threatening, Jews living in France were systematically excluded from virtually every aspect of ordinary life. By 1942, deportations had begun and gradually accelerated until by 1944, nearly 75,000 Jewish men, women and children had been murdered.
Following the liberation of France by the Allied forces, all of the antisemitic legislation was repealed, and France returned to the cherished principles of the French Revolution with respect to its Jewish population. The horrors of the Holocaust and the complicity of France in that event seemed to have forever inoculated France against the disease of official antisemitism. Although ridding the population at large of this disease may not have seemed possible, making certain that the French government would not be a party to such reprehensible behavior seemed assured.
It was assured until last week.
Under cover of the new antisemitism — opposition to Israel and its supporters — the French government, acting through its Ministry of Defense, for the first time since its occupation during World War II adopted a measure laced with antisemitism. It declared that Israeli companies (74 of which were registered to participate) were to be banned from attending Eurosatory, the world’s largest trade show for defense and security contractors being held just outside of Paris, which began on June 17.
A court order further declared that all representatives and agents of Israeli companies (including, of course, many French Jews) were also to be banned from attending the trade show. A sign was then allegedly posted on the front entrance warning Israelis that they were not welcome.
With its decision, the French government, heir to the enlightened principles of the French Revolution, openly, blatantly and unashamedly betrayed those principles, even though this betrayal is shrouded by rhetoric about the current conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Based on Israel’s alleged “war crime” of defending itself against terrorists and of seeking to eliminate a vicious enemy that uses its own people as human shields, French President Emmanuel Macron’s government used the outrageous and egregiously false excuse that Israelis may be committing genocide to ban all Israeli manufacturers from Eurosatory and effectively also banned anyone who could be considered to be assisting them — read: any Jew.
Fortunately, on June 18, the Paris Commercial Court declared that the government’s action was discriminatory and reversed it. This was an important decision, but it was handed down too late to permit Israeli companies to set up and participate in the trade show. The antisemites had their victory.
The government’s action of isolating and demonizing Jews (albeit now under cover of the term “Israelis”) echoes the worst that France has wrought over the last 200 years. It accentuates the old antisemitic trope that Jews are evil and that they are outsiders, as repeatedly depicted by enemies of the Jews, whether for political, economic or religious reasons.
France is a far better nation than this. Its leaders should be embarrassed and ashamed of having undermined some of France’s greatest qualities based on Enlightenment principles of tolerance, societal solidarity and justice. The Macron government’s decision to isolate and banish Israelis and those who assist them (Jews, of course) from an important event in French commercial life is a profoundly disturbing and destructive event.
Hopefully, as French citizens head to the polls in the next few weeks to participate in the election of a new National Assembly, they will take into account the antisemitic policy adopted by the current government and will express their rejection of those who have supported this policy.
• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. He is the author of “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” published by HUC Press.
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