As concerns about antisemitic violence sparked by Israel’s conflict with Hamas rise, French police are securing the residences of prominent MPs.
Meyer Habib, a member of parliament, and National Assembly President Yal Braun-Pivet are reportedly under police protection.
Since Saturday, 100 anti-Semitic incidents have been reported, according to France’s interior minister.
Separately, the chancellor of Germany proclaimed “zero tolerance” for antisemitism.
He informed the legislature that a pro-Palestinian organisation would be banned for celebrating the killing of Israeli civilians on Saturday.
In an effort to stop the war from heightening tensions, French President Emmanuel Macron was scheduled to deliver a television speech on Wednesday.
According to reports, the Hamas attack claimed the lives of twelve French citizens, and Mr. Macron informed party leaders that four of the 17 people still missing were minors.
With about 500,000 members, France has the largest Jewish population in Europe.
On Thursday, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told France Inter radio that since hostilities started, “more than 100 antisemitic acts” had been documented.
Graffiti with “swastikas, ‘death to Jews,’ and calls for intifadas against Israel” was the most common type. He stated that in certain cases, people were detained for attempting to bring blades into synagogues and schools.
It has also come to light that Yal Braun-Pivet, the assembly president, has been threatened with death.
She is a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party. In response to the Hamas attack on Israel, she ordered this week that Parliament be lighted in the colours of the Israeli flag. On Tuesday, she also called for a moment of quiet before the Assembly meeting.
A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Maryam Abu Daqqa, was also prohibited from attending a documentary screening in parliament the following month, according to Ms. Braun-Pivet’s announcement. The EU has designated the militant group as a terrorist organisation.
Protection has also been granted to Meyer Habib. He is a passionate admirer of Israel and represents a group of French nationals living abroad that includes Israel and the Palestinian Territories. He claimed that “we are witnessing the return of pogroms” following the Hamas attack.
In the wake of the Hamas attack, French politics has been torn apart.
While the majority of parties have denounced Saturday’s “terrorist attack” and supported Israel’s right to retaliate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party’s initial statement has been more ambiguous.
As a result of the party’s use of the phrase “an armed offensive of Palestinian forces” in a statement about the Hamas attack, other parties, notably left-wing allies like the Socialist and Communist parties, criticised the party harshly.
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, declared to the Bundestag’s members that Germany’s state policy was to ensure Israel’s security. In a show of support, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is scheduled to visit Israel on Friday.
Additionally, Mr. Scholz declared that Samidoun, a pro-Palestinian organisation seen in Berlin’s Neukölln neighbourhood handing out candy to celebrate the Hamas attack, would be prohibited. He continued, “We do not allow antisemitism.
Israeli flags that had been flown in support of the nation in a number of German locations, including Mainz, Braunschweig, and Heilbronn, were reportedly pulled down and destroyed, sometimes in a matter of hours, according to German officials.
According to Braunschweig’s mayor, Thorsten Kornblum, “the act disrespects and mocks the victims” of Hamas’s attack.
Mr Scholz went on to say that “without Iranian support, Hamas would not have been able to carry out these unprecedented attacks” .