Juppe denounces anti-Semitism in France

PARIS, Jan 25 (AFP) – Former French prime minister and current ruling party leader Alain Juppe on Sunday denounced the resurgence of anti-Semitism in France, which he said was linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“It’s crystal clear, the figures are there,” Juppe said of the rise in anti-Semitic incidents on Radio J, one of several Paris area radio stations aimed at Jewish listeners.

“We’re seeing a new form of anti-Semitism that is not the type we’ve seen in the past, but one that is rooted, it has to be said, in the situation in the Middle East,” he noted.

Juppe ensured France’s Jews that “their place in the national community was not in any way in question” and promised that the government would react with firmness to any anti-Semitic acts.

The comments by Juppe, president of the ruling center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), came as Israel named France as the country with the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in the world last year.

Juppe also expressed concern over the rise of Holocaust denial and revisionism among students in France’s schools.

“Today, in some classrooms, the history professor cannot talk about the Shoah without some student raising his hand to say, ‘That’s not true. It never happened’,” Juppe lamented.

The former prime minister said such examples proved the existence of “political propaganda” that “calls into question the fundamental principles of the Republic.”

Subject: France news