France can’t keep its Jews safe

France is home to roughly half-a-million Jews. The country’s Jewish community is the largest in Europe, and the third largest in the world behind Israel and the United States. You might assume then that Jewish life in France is flourishing. But you’d be wrong.

Over the weekend, news broke of the murder of Eyal Haddad, a Tunisian Jew living on the outskirts of Paris. What happened is still shrouded in mystery: the family’s lawyer denied earlier reports that the victim’s body had been burned and that the perpetrator had confessed to killing Haddad over a 100 euro debt, and because he was Jewish. But what we do know is this: Haddad was killed with an axe and a knife in a suspected anti-Semitic attack and his alleged killer appeared in a Facebook picture showing him burning an Israeli flag.

Until the country’s authorities confront that truth and do something about the tide of anti-Semitism, Jewish blood will continue to be spilled on French soil

If this was a one-off incident, it would be a tragedy. But it’s not. Haddad’s murder is, in fact, part of a horrifying trend.

The harrowing murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006 brought the plight of French Jewry to the fore. The 23-year-old was kidnapped and slowly tortured to death by a criminal gang calling themselves the Barbarians. Halimi was targeted by the group because he was Jewish, and therefore assumed to be from a wealthy background, despite the fact he lived in the same run-down Paris suburb as they did. In a pattern that has now become as habitual as the attacks themselves, French police initially downplayed antisemitism as a motive – a miscalculation which Halimi’s mother believes was a serious contributing factor in her son’s eventual death.

Jewish life in France has been in decline for the best part of a decade. In 2015, almost 8,000 Jews made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) – the largest number from any Western country since the modern state’s creation. This exodus was precipitated by two antisemitic shootings, which sent shockwaves through the Jewish community. In 2012, French-born jihadist, Mohammed Merah, went on a rampage killing seven people, including a rabbi and three children at a Jewish day school in Toulouse. Less than three years later, in January 2015, Amedy Coulibaly – who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State – shot four people dead in a kosher supermarket in Paris.

In April last year, it seemed that the safety of French Jews might finally become a political priority: 25,000 people took to the streets of Paris to demand justice for Sarah Hallimi, resulting in president Macron calling for judiciary reform. 65-year-old Hallimi was murdered in 2017 by her neighbour, Kobili Traoré, who broke into her Paris apartment and launched a frenzied attack before pushing her off her third-floor balcony while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. The protests were sparked by the decision of France’s highest court of appeal to uphold an earlier ruling that Traoré should not face trial, as two out of three psychologists had found he was in the grip of a cannabis-induced psychosis at the time of the murder, and therefore not criminally responsible for his actions.

The feeling amongst many Jews – in France and further afield – is that Jewish life in France is cheap. Haddad is just one of three Jews to have died in a suspected antisemitic attack in France this year. In February, 31-year-old Jeremy Cohen was killed after being hit by a tram in Bobigny, near Paris. Initially, police chalked it down as a road traffic accident; however in May, after launching their own investigation, his family released footage which showed Cohen – who wore a kippah, making him visibly Jewish – running from a mob in the moments before his death. 

Then in May, in a chilling echo of Sarah Halimi’s killing, 89-year-old René Hadjaj was strangled and thrown to his death from the 17th floor of his Lyon apartment block by a neighbour. Of course, French police initially denied that Hadjaj’s Jewish heritage was a factor in his killing – but were forced to make a u-turn just days later, when a Jewish group unearthed a spate of antisemitic messages posted by his alleged killer online.

Jews are not safe in France. Until the country’s authorities confront that truth and do something about the tide of anti-Semitism, Jewish blood will continue to be spilled on French soil. As for whether France has the stomach for such an uncomfortable conversation, I’m not holding my breath.