Speaking Saturday night at a demonstration called by the Jewish Student's Union of France (UEJF) at the Porte de Vincennes in eastern Paris in homage to the four Jewish victims of Friday’s attack on a kosher supermarket by an Islamist terrorist, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, said that “France without Jews is not France.’’
France, where some 600,000 Jews live, the second largest Diaspora community after the US, sent a record 7,000 Jews to Israel in 2014, amid fears of increasing anti-Semitism. Friday’s attack spurred renewed calls for immigration to Israel.
Last week, Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said he saw 10,000 French Jews moving to Israel in 2015, and 250,000 over the next 20 years.
But Manuel Valls said a France bereft of 100,000 Jews would be deemed a failure.
“100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure,” he said.
The Paris attacks re-raised the specter of increased Jewish immigration from France and the rest of Europe to Israel.
Valls said that the French Republic had been founded on equal rights being extended to Jews, but that was being threatened with an admitted rise in anti-Semitism coming from an influx of Muslim immigrants.
“There is a new anti-Semitism in France. We have the old anti-Semitism, and I’m obviously not downplaying it, that comes from the extreme right, but this new anti-Semitism comes from the difficult neighborhoods, from immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have turned anger about Gaza into something very dangerous. Israel and Palestine are just a pretext. There is something far more profound taking place now,” he said.
The last decade has seen a series of high profile attacks on Jews, including the kidnapping and brutal murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006 and a shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 that left four people dead, including a rabbi and three children.
During the summer, a number of anti-Israel rallies turned violent, including one in which Jewish worshipers were trapped inside a synagogue.
Following the Friday attack on the HyperCacher market, Israeli leaders upped calls for Jews to make for Israel.
“To all the Jews of France, all the Jews of Europe, I would like to say that Israel is not just the place in whose direction you pray, the state of Israel is your home,” Iraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement, referring to the Jewish practice of facing Jerusalem during prayer.
Deputy Knesset speaker, Yoni Chetboun, who heads the Knesset’s French-Israeli caucus, called on the government to declare France an “emergency target” for immigration to Israel.
The freshman lawmaker said that in light of the recent events in France, thousands of French Jews are expected to knock on the doors of the Jewish Agency and inquire about immigration.
Valls, though, indicated that French Jews should be shown they do not need to flee the country.
“The Jews of France are profoundly attached to France but they need reassurance that they are welcome here, that they are secure here,” he said.
Jewish schools and synagogues in France have been promised extra protection, by the army if necessary, after the killings by Islamic militants in Paris, the head of CRIF, the Jewish community's umbrella representative group said on Sunday after a meeting with French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee palace.
The attacker who took hostages in a siege of a Paris kosher supermarket in which four people died on Friday said he was targeting the Jewish community. The gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, was killed as police broke the siege.
"We have our sadness and our rage, we also have a set out a number of urgent measures to take," CRIF President Roger Cukierman said after a meeting with Hollande.
More than a million people are expected to converge on central Paris on Sunday afternoon for a “national unity” rally in solidarity with the victims of the week’s attacks and in support of freedom of the press.
French political leaders from across the political spectrum, including Socialist President François Hollande and his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, were due to attend.
So were 40 world leaders, including the British David Cameron, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, Turkey’s Ahmet Davutoglu, Donald Tusk, President of the EU Council, Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, Mali’s Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Gabon’s Ali Bongo.
The rally will mark the first time since 1990 that a French president has taken part in a demonstration.
“This is an unprecedented march, it will go down in history,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Saturday. “It must be strong, dignified and show the power and dignity of French people who will shout their love of freedom and tolerance.”