Following is a translation of the remarks on antisemitism
delivered by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to the National Assembly
on January 13, 2015:
…The first question that has to be clearly dealt with is the
struggle against antisemitism. History has taught us that the awakening
of antisemitism is the symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis
for the Republic. That is why we must respond with force. Since Ilan
Halimi in 2006, after the crimes of Toulouse, antisemitic acts in France
have grown to an intolerable degree. The words, the insults, the
gestures, the shameful attacks, as we saw in Creteil a few weeks ago,
which I mentioned here in the Chamber, and which did not not produce the
national outrage that our Jewish compatriots expected.
There is a huge level of concern, that fear which we felt at
the HyperCacher at Porte de Vincennes and in the synagogue de la
Victoire on Sunday night. How can we accept that in France, where the
Jews were emancipated two centuries ago, but which was also where they
were martyred 70 years ago, how can we accept that cries of “death to
the Jews” can be heard on the streets? How can we accept these acts
that I have just mentioned? How can we accept that French people can be
murdered for being Jews? How can we accept that compatriots, or a
Tunisian citizen whose father sent him to France so that he would be
safe, is killed when he goes out to buy his bread for Shabbat because
he is Jewish? This is not acceptable and I say to the people in general
who perhaps have not reacted sufficiently up to now, and to our Jewish
compatriots, that this time it cannot be accepted, that we must stand up
and say what’s really going on.
There is a historical antisemitism that goes back centuries,
but there is also a new antsemitism that is born in our neighborhoods,
coming through the internet, satellite dishes, against the backdrop of
the loathing of the State of Israel, and which advocates hatred of the
Jews and all the Jews. It has to be spelled out, the right words must be
used to fight this unacceptable antisemitism.( …)
Without its Jews France would not be France, this is the
message we have to communicate loud and clear. We haven’t done so. We
haven’t shown enough outrage. How can we accept that in certain schools
and colleges the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a
child is asked “Who is your enemy” the response is “the Jew?” When the
Jews of France are attacked France is attacked, the conscience of
humanity is attacked. Let us never forget it.
And to how to accept the indignity of a serial hater having a
full house on Saturday night, when the country was mourning for what
happened in Porte de Vincennes? Let us never pass over these matters in
silence, and let justice be implacable with those who preach hate. And I
say that emphatically here at the National Assembly.
And to finish my remarks, Ladies and Gentleman, when someone,
a young man or woman, a citizen, has doubts and approaches me or the
Minister of Education with the question: “But I don’t understand, how
come you want to silence this comedian, and you put the Charlie Hebdo
journalists up on a pedestal?” There is a fundamental difference – and
this is the battle that we have to win, educating our young people –
there is a fundamental difference between the freedom to be insolent –
blasphemy is not a crime and never will be – there is a fundamental
difference between that liberty and anti-Semitism, racism, excusing
terrorism and Holocaust denial, which are crimes that the courts must
punish with ever greater severity.
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