The French far-left has been criticised for boycotting a bipartisan demonstration against antisemitism as over 100,000 took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to denounce the rise in hatred against Jews.
Amid soaring incidents of antisemitism throughout France, over 70 rallies were held throughout the country in solidarity with the nation’s Jewish population. According to the Ministry of the Interior, over 182,000 people rallied in total, with approximately 105,000 in Paris.
The slogan “For the Republic, against anti-Semitism” was chanted throughout the nation, Le Figaro reported. It came in response to hundreds of antisemitic incidents being recorded in the wake of the murderous Hamas terror attacks on Israel last month.
However, the cross-party demonstration was marred by a boycott of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) parliamentary party, which objected to the presence of former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and other members of her right-wing populist Rassemblement National (National Rally) party.
The leftist party of socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon justified their boycott based on comments made in the 1980s denying aspects of the Holocaust by Le Pen’s father and former National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was expelled from the party by his daughter in 2015 over his controversial remarks.
Rassemblement National (RN) member of Parliament Marine Le Pen (C), President of Rassemblement National Jordan Bardella and RN party MP Sebastien Chenu march during a demonstration against anti-Semitism in Paris, on November 12, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy Van der Hasselt / AFP) (Photo by GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP via Getty Images)
Le Pen described the leftist boycott of the march against antisemitism as “petty politics” and added of her own party’s decision to join the demonstration: “We are exactly where we need to be”.
The centrist neo-liberal President of the French Senate and one of the organisers of the cross-party demo, Yaël Braun-Pivet accused leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon “of dirtying everything” by refusing to attend.
PARIS, FRANCE – NOVEMBER 12: Former French Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, speaker of the French parliament, Yaël Braun-Pivet and speaker of the Senate, Gérard Larcher form some of the people holding the banner “For the Republique, against anti-Semitism” during a march against anti-Semitismon November 12, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Remon Haazen/Getty Images)
The LFI boycott was also criticised by populist writer and former Reconquête! presidential candidate Eric Zemmour for their “sectarian” behaviour, adding: “It’s cheeky of these people who did everything to ensure that there were more immigrants in our country. I find that indecent of them.”
For her part, Marine Le Pen’s niece, Marion Maréchal, who will represent Reconquest! in the European elections next year, criticised the “antisemitic ambiguity” of the far-left and that “on our soil, a population closer to Hamas than to our Jewish compatriots”.
While many leftists refused to join the march against antisemitism, at least forty far-left street radicals attempted to mob Le Pen at the march while singing “We are getting rid of the extreme right,” before being dragged away by police.
Despite former French presidents, including Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande as well as current Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne, attending the demonstration on Sunday, President Emmanuel Macron refrained from joining.
Instead, Macron addressed the nation in a letter published in the Le Parisien newspaper, decrying “the unbearable resurgence of unbridled anti-Semitism”, adding: “A France where our Jewish citizens are afraid is not France.”
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