The head of CRIF, the French Jewish umbrella representative group, Roger Cukierman, called on France to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and urged French President Francois Hollande to make the fight against racism and anti-Semitism ‘’a national cause.’’
Cukierman was addressing Tuesday the annual gala dinner of CRIF which every year is attended by the French President and by several government ministers and other personalities.
''Anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem but the problem of France ,'' Cukierman said, denouncing both extreme-left and extreme-right anti-Semitism alike.
'' Make it a national cause ,'' he told President Hollande, calling for a rally on March 19 in Paris to commemorate the murders in 2012 in Toulouse of six people, including three Jewish children, by Mohamed Merah, an Islamist terrorist.
" The vile beast is alas still present today in France ," lamented the president of CRIF .
"I think with sadness, with anxiety, to the slogans shouted by a few thousand demonstrators on Sunday 26 January in Paris. They shouted : Jews outside France, it’s not yours,’’ he addded.
Cukierman also mentioned the fact that the recent media storm around Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, a comedian who has multiple convictions for anti-Semitic hate speech, risked generating a new spike in anti-Semitic incidents.
“Thousands wanted to watch Dieudonne’s show of Jew hatred, and millions were exposed to his online videos. There is a large audience so I am concerned that, following recent events, we would have a new conflagration of anti-Semitic acts,” Cukierman said.
In his response, Hollande stressed that ‘’the government of the French Republic will not tolerate anything .'' '' In 2013, we thought we had a lull and even a decline in anti-Semitic acts and events. Alas it was an illusion. If the number of events was reduced by 30%, the level that allowed this comparison was exceptionally high, " he said.
On Sunday, the Protection Service of th Jewish Community (SPCJ) reported 423 anti-Semitic incidents in its annual 2013 report on anti-Semitism in France — a 31-percent decrease from 2012.
“But 2012 saw a conflagration after the slaying of children in Toulouse,” Cukierman said. “So we are talking about a decrease, but on the contrary, there is growth. Behind the figures there is a difficult climate.”
Cukierman also said he would ask Hollande to have France’s education system teach tolerance beginning in first grade.