PARIS—The head of France’s Jewish community Francis Kalifat has urged the CEO of the country’s largest supermarket chain to systematically complain to the legal authorities when anti-Israel boycott actions take place in their stores.
Kalifat, president of Crif, the umbrella representative group of French Jewish institutions, met last week with Alexandre Bompard, President and Director General of the Carrefour group following an incident several weeks ago when a junior manager at a small town Carrefour supermarket branch removed Israeli dates placed on a special shelf for Ramadan after a Muslim customer complained they ‘’offend Muslims’ feelings.’’ “They are shooting at Gazans as if they were rabbits. Putting Israeli dates on the Ramadan stand is an insult to Muslims”, the customer, a BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions) activist, was heard as saying in a video posted online.
The manager is seen placing the packages of dates in a trolley brought by employees and removing them from the shelf as the man who complained about the dates thanks him.
In the video, the complainant was seen telling a shopper about a different brand of dates: “These are good, they’re from Algeria.”
The Israeli dates were later returned to the shelves, a Carrefour spokesperson told daily Le Figaro. Carrefour “offers merchandise and adheres to a strict neutrality on politics, philosophy and religion,” a spokesperson for the supermarket chain said.
Kalifat noted that this kind of incident has a strong emotional impact on the Jewish community. The Carrefour CEO assured Crif of his desire to reinfoce actions in favour of neutrality and secularism.
Le Figaro has mentioned several similar cases of anti-Israel boycott actions in other supermarkets in order to get Israeli products withdrawn from shelves. Recent incidents include a Grand Frais store in Décines near Lyon, an Intermarche store in the town of Itxassou in southwestern France and a Lidl store in Drancy near Paris. A spokesperson for Grand Frais told the newspaper his chain is a “victim of these attacks, that prevent us from doing our work.”
When the incident occured at the Carrefour store in Chambourcy, near Paris, a watchdog on anti-Semitism had called for a boycott of the supermarket.
The Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, also complained to police about the incident. The group called the act “discriminatory.”
Promoting a boycott against a nation is illegal in France, where dozens of activists for the BDS movement against Israel have been convicted for inciting hatred or discrimination.
Sammy Ghozlan, leader of BNVCA, condemned what he called the actions of “an Islamist police” in French supermarkets.
Crif said the boycott actions “are mixed in with anti-Semitic acts. Through Israel, the Jews are targeted here.”
The Israeli Embassy in France said it ‘’closely follows every manifestation of boycott activity against Israel in France and maintains continuous and intensive dialogue with the leaders of the business sector as well as law enforcement authorities and the French government to eradicate the phenomenon which is prohibited by French law.”
France’s Supreme Court has ruled that any activity aimed at imposing a boycott on Israel constitutes a hate crime or a clear instance of discrimination.
The ruling applies Article 24 of France’s Law on the Freedom of the Press, which was first passed on July 29, 1881, and updated in December 2004. This law imposes imprisonment or a fine of 45,000 euros on a person or entity “that incites to discrimination, to hate or to violence against a person or a group of persons on the basis of extraction, affiliation or nonaffiliation with an ethnic group, nation, race or religion.”