The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) welcomed Friday’s announcement by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls of a new government strategy to combat anti-Semitism and racism.
The strategy focuses on the same four elements of ADL’s efforts against anti-Semitism: public awareness campaigns, legal reforms, addressing cyber-hate, and sponsoring anti-bias education programs in schools.
“Prime Minister Valls has shown exceptional leadership in forcefully denouncing anti-Semitism, and today he has taken an important next step by announcing a comprehensive strategy to confront it,” said ADL National Chairman Barry Curtiss-Lusher.
“While we await more details to fully understand all of the components of the proposed programs, the broad-based approach leaves no doubt about the government’s commitment,” he added.
‘’The new strategy recognizes Jewish communal security requires more than soldiers in front of synagogues and Jewish schools. The French government strategy addresses four areas where ADL also focuses our efforts, and we look forward to continuing our discussions with the government on these pressing issues,’’ said ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman.
The French Jewish community feels insecurity due to the anti-Semitic terror attacks of the past few years and the alarming frequency of physical assaults on Jews and Jewish institutions.
Contrary to popularly held belief, attacks on French Jews regularly occur even when it’s quiet in the Middle East. In 2014, only one out of four anti-Semitic physical assaults took place during the Gaza conflict in July. The rest were more or less equally spread over the rest of the year.