SARCELLES, France \u2014 On market day, this suburb north of Paris feels like a living mosaic of France\u2019s layered social fabric.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The stalls are a riot of colour and sound: shoes for \u20ac6, halal and kosher butchers side by side, and the scent of grilled meats mixing with fruit. The crowd is so dense, it\u2019s hard to move.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the centre of this suburb lies a compact Jewish quarter, affectionately nicknamed \u201cLittle Jerusalem.\u201d It grew out of the vast housing estates built in the 1950s and 1960s for the so-called pieds-noirs \u2014 French settlers returning from Algeria after independence. Many Sephardic Jews, driven from Northern Africa, settled here in those years, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For decades, this patchwork of coexistence stood as a small symbol of France\u2019s uneasy but enduring multicultural balance. But today, that fragile equilibrium feels increasingly under strain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two years after Hamas\u2019 brutal 7 October attack on Israel, the Jewish community in and around Paris finds itself gripped by fear. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019 government wages an unrelenting military campaign in Gaza, public opinion in France \u2014 and across Europe \u2014 has turned sharply against Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the French Interior Ministry, in the first six months of 2025, 646 antisemitic acts were recorded in France<\/a>, a 27.5% decrease compared to the first half of 2024. But it represents a jump of 112.5% compared to the same period in 2023,\u202fbefore the Hamas attack and the war in Gaza. \u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n A conflation of Israel and Judaism has driven a surge in antisemitic incidents, with many in \u201cLittle Jerusalem\u201d and other Jewish neighbourhoods describing a growing sense of isolation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLife is changing, the world is changing. People have changed, everyone has changed,\u201d Jeremy, who owns a burger restaurant in Sarcelles with his wife, told The Parliament. \u201cSince there was this war, since October 7, I think that the hatred of Jews has increased. People say \u2018we are proud to be anti-Jewish.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Nina*, another restaurant owner in the neighbourhood, echoed those concerns: \u201cWhat\u2019s happening right now in France, it\u2019s a nightmare,\u201d she said through tears.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n When criticism equals antisemitism\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Gaza war has not only deepened the sense of danger for many French Jews, but also the rifts over what can \u2014 or cannot \u2014 be said about Israel. For many in France\u2019s Jewish community, criticism of the state feels inseparable from attacks on their identity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe current French Jewish public that frequents synagogues is extremely sensitive to the Israeli question,\u201d said \u00c9mile Ackermann, a rabbi who leads Ayeka, France\u2019s first Modern Orthodox community. \u201cThey perceive Israel as a refuge and have difficulty welcoming criticism of the state of Israel today\u2026 any criticism is seen as a form of open door to anti-Semitism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThe fact remains that sociologically, many in the current Jewish community are all behind Israel, not because they like Palestinian civil suffering, but because they trust Israel.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n At the same time, Ackermann said that while Israel \u201cis legitimate, a safe haven for many Jews\u2026like any country, it is not above criticism.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n That distinction has grown increasingly fraught as the war drags on. Few now see Israel\u2019s attacks in Gaza as proportionate or justified<\/a>. Israel\u2019s military response has killed some 66,000 Palestinians according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is under the Hamas-run government.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The political mood in Europe has shifted, too. After 7 October, many leaders rallied behind Israel in solidarity. But as civilian deaths mounted, criticism intensified. In France, President Emmanuel Macron \u2014 who had initially vowed \u201cunreserved solidarity\u201d with Israel \u2014 recalibrated his stance, supporting recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September. The move drew sharp criticism from some prominent Jewish leaders at home<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The tension between legitimate critique and the fear of antisemitism extends beyond France. In Germany, for instance, a recent report by the Diaspora Alliance<\/a> found that the country\u2019s main antisemitism watchdog, RIAS, risks politicising and inflating data. By defining antisemitism through what the authors call an \u201ceternalist\u201d lens \u2014 one that treats most criticism of Israel as inherently antisemitic \u2014 RIAS often omits crucial context.\u00a0<\/p>\n The result, critics say, is a conflation that fuels misunderstanding rather than protecting Jewish communities. \u201cThe numbers are very nebulous,\u201d historian and former senator Esther Benbassa told The Parliament, arguing that blurring political critique with prejudice ultimately weakens the fight against genuine antisemitism.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet few deny antisemitism is very much present\u00a0in France. In January, on the 10th\u00a0anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket attacks, Jewish homes, businesses and a synagogue in the northern French city of Rouen were vandalised with swastikas and antisemitic messages<\/a> calling for Jews to be gassed. In March, the chief rabbi of Orleans was attacked<\/a> while walking through the city centre with his young son.\u00a0<\/p>\n Divisions within the community and rightward drift\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The spike in antisemitism and growing sense of vulnerability has also redrawn France\u2019s political map. Among some, fear has turned into a search for protection \u2014 even in unlikely places.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Some who once voted for the left or centrist parties now say they would back Marine Le Pen\u2019s far-right National Rally (RN), a party long shunned for its antisemitic roots. Many see it as their best defence against rising hostility, which they increasingly link to anti-Israel sentiment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Le Pen has spent years rebranding her party, softening its image and distancing it from her father\u2019s Holocaust-denying legacy.\u00a0 In a \u201cpoll of polls\u201d by Politico<\/a> measuring voting intentions, the RN leads with 32% of the vote, ahead of the New Popular Front \u2014 of which the hard left La France Insoumise (LFI) is a member \u2014 at 25%.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe defends the community. She\u2019s proven it. From what I see in her whole story, she\u2019s proven it \u2014 that she stood against her father and his politics,\u201d said Eric, a Jewish taxi driver who spoke to The Parliament from outside a kosher restaurant in Sarcelles. \u201cToday, she speaks about Jews in a positive way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But Le Pen\u2019s embrace comes with its own brand of exclusion. As the party has positioned itself as a protector of France\u2019s Jews, it also amplifies anti-Muslim rhetoric. Le Pen has called for the hijab to be banned in public spaces and was tried and cleared<\/a> of inciting religious hatred in 2015 after comparing Muslims praying on a street in 2010 to the Nazi occupation. Meanwhile, Jordan Bardella, Le Pen\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9, has described \u201cpolitical Islam<\/a>,\u201d as an existential threat to France.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe narrative used by the extreme right is that it is the same Arabs who want to destroy Israel that the Arabs who are here want to destroy France,\u201d said Ackermann.\u00a0<\/p>\n At a rally in May last year, Le Pen called the RN \u201cthe only movement\u201d capable of fighting Islamist fundamentalism. Despite controversial policies such as banning ritual slaughter \u2014 which would effectively ban halal and kosher meat \u2014 some Jews still say they would vote for her.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be a lot of things that will be forbidden, that we will not be able to do, that we will not be able to practice,\u201d said Jeremy, in Sarcelles. \u201cThat\u2019s what we choose if it is to live in peace. Living safely. Avoid all of these [pro-Palestinian] protests.\u201d\u00a0 Dominique Vidal, who is a well-known Jewish journalist who has been outspoken on his support of Palestine, told The Parliament that the far right has been able to pitch itself as the only bulwark against terrorism and aggression in France. \u201cIt is a speech that is very popular with a part of the Jewish community that feels attacked,\u201d he said. \u201cFear is always the best breeding ground.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n *Some names have been changed on request.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\nBut not everyone is convinced. Both the RN and the LFI have been rejected by the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), which last year signed a joint statement<\/a> proclaiming \u201cneither the RN or the LFI.\u201d Writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy told The Guardian that when it came to RN, \u201cthere is absolutely no evidence of a deep change on the matter of antisemitism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n