A Slander on France

By Francois Bujon de l'Estang

Saturday, June 22, 2002; Page A19

The recent upsurge in acts of violence against my Jewish countrymen is a matter of great concern in France. The French authorities and people as a whole share the shock and distress of our Jewish community. Anti-Semitic acts in France have caused understandable emotion in the United States as well, but they have also elicited some offensive, even outrageous, remarks.

A well-known columnist recently wrote in The Post, "Holocaust shame kept the demon corked. . . . But now the atonement is passed. The genie is out again" [April 26]. Another asserted: "This crisis has become the second -- and final? -- phase of the struggle for a 'final solution to the Jewish question' " [May 2]. Comparisons have been made to Kristallnacht. And a recent advertisement in California drew a mind-boggling parallel between the France of 2002 and that of 1942 -- an insult to victims of the Holocaust.

I have been dismayed by these comments, which are blatantly malicious, as anybody who knows France and the French would immediately realize. Such allegations misread history and grossly misrepresent the realities of today's France.

Never mind that my country was the first in Europe to extend full citizenship to Jews, in 1791, or that it came close to civil war a century ago because the intelligentsia rallied to restore the honor of an innocent Jewish officer, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, wrongly convicted of treason.

Never mind that during the Occupation, countless French people took innumerable risks to shelter Jews, thereby saving three-quarters of them from the death camps.

Never mind that as a result of these anonymous acts of heroism, France is proud to be the home of the second-largest Jewish diaspora in the world after the United States -- one that is fully and thoroughly integrated. While the United States had to wait until the year 2000 to see a Jewish candidate run on the presidential ticket, France has had several Jewish heads of government, including Leon Blum in 1936 and Pierre Mendes France in 1954.

Never mind that World Jewish Congress president, Edgar Bronfman, stated on April 29 that "France is not an anti-Semitic country," echoing the very words used by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the grand rabbi of France. Never mind that France's Jewish community itself categorically rejects the idea that the country is anti-Semitic. Never mind that more than a million French people marched against racism and xenophobia on May Day, and that voters rejected extremism and bigotry by a record 82 percent during the presidential runoff.

All that matters little to our columnists-turned-prosecutors.

Now for the facts: A series of inexcusable assaults -- physical, material and symbolic -- has been committed in France against Jews over the past 20 months. Nearly all were perpetrated by poorly integrated youths of Muslim origin who would like to bring the Mideast conflict to France. President Jacques Chirac has declared that such acts are "utterly unimaginable, unforgivable, indescribable and must be condemned and punished." He proclaimed that "when a synagogue is burned, it is France that is humiliated; when a Jew is assaulted, it is France that is assaulted."

Such actions are being and will continue to be punished. But they must be seen for what they are: a spillover from the Israel-Palestinian conflict. They don't make France any more anti-Semitic than the persistence of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists makes the United States a racist country on the verge of restoring segregation or slavery.

The reaction of French authorities has been firm and resolute. Some 1,200 French anti-riot police and gendarmerie have been assigned to protect Jewish facilities. Seven hundred and fifty-seven synagogues are under police protection, and Jewish schools are under tight surveillance. When suspects are arrested, they are swiftly handed over to the courts and given harsh sentences.

France has a long tradition of tolerance and respect for freedom of religion. It will remain true to it. It also has a tradition of fighting for international peace and justice. It has long striven for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, which can be achieved only by the coexistence of Israel and a viable Palestinian state within internationally guaranteed borders. Those who perpetrate the fiction that France is anti-Semitic only to pursue their own agenda of discrediting French policy in the Middle East are distorting the truth in a despicable way.

The writer is France's ambassador to the United States.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company