Anti-Semitic acts represent 41% of racist and anti-Semitic acts committed in France in 2019. However, French Jews represent less than 1% of the national population.

687 antisemitic acts were recorded in France in 2019, the Protection Service of the Jewish community (SPCJ) announced in its annual report.

Anti-Semitic acts represent 41% of racist and anti-Semitic acts committed in France in 2019. However, French Jews represent less than 1% of the national population.

According to SPCJ, a body created by Crif, the umbrella representative group of French Jewish institutions that works with the police services, this number of anti-Semitic acts ‘’is far below the reality.’’ The number of 687 corresponds to the acts which were the subject of a complaint.

Francis Kalifat, president of Crif, has the following explanation:  ‘’First of all, people will no longer file complaints because many people put things into perspective and say “there is worse.” There are also those who think that it is useless, those who have become so used to it that they no longer do so and those who will not go to file complaints because they are afraid to do so because they know their attacker.’’

‘’It is “everyday anti-Semitism”, one that does not go into the statistics, not being reported to the competent authorities,’’ Kalifat added.

In January, the Interior Ministry noted that anti-Semitic incidents were once again on the rise (+ 27%)  after the jump of + 74% recorded in 2018, compared to 2017.

Among the 687 incidents that were recorded by the police, actions (attacks on people and property such as physical violence, degradations …) were down to 151, compared to threats (536).

A few days ago, Crif presented the first figures from the Observatory of anti-Semitism online, to assess the number of hate posts on social networks.

These figures show that there were 52,000 violently anti-Semitic publications in 2019 (after moderation by the platforms). ‘’The interest of this observatory is to complete the SPCJ’s annual report so that we can take the full measure of anti-Semitic hatred. This observatory is also intended to extend to all forms of hatred.