Anti-Semitism Down In France
The number of anti-semitic incidents in France has halved since 2004, according to new figures released by the French police force.
There were 504 anti-semitic acts or threats reported in 2005, a drop of 48 per cent from the high of 974 in 2004, the worst year for such attacks since the government began keeping records of hate crimes in 1995.
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A spokesman for CRIF, the representative organisation of French Jewry, said: “We are pleased with the fall in the number of anti-semitic acts recorded in 2005. The statistics of the Jewish Community Protection Service indicate that such incidents decreased by half between this year and the year 2004, which saw an exceptionally high peak. These results are in line with the fall observed by the Ministry for the Interior.”
But there was a note of caution too, as CRIF officials pointed out that despite the sharp fall, “these figures remain ten times higher in terms of violence and six times higher for the threats than those recorded at the end of the 1990s”.
CRIF called on the government to continue to fight anti-semitism and called on “the whole of civil society to accompany this effort because the fight against racism and anti-semitism must be the business of all”.
Police also announced an accompanying 21 per cent drop in racist and xenophobic attacks in the country, with 470 incidents recorded in 2005 compared to 600 such acts during the previous year.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon angered French government officials in 2004 when he insisted French Jews “must” move to Israel immediately in order to escape what he described as the “wildest anti-semitism”.
The remark strained relations between Jerusalem and Jacques Chirac’s government, but Sharon later clarified the comments, praising France’s efforts to fight Jew hatred as an example to the world.
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