Arriving at the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) in Paris, one observes high levels of security implemented to protect the premises and screen every visitor.

Yonathan Arfi, president of the CRIF, told JNS that the police in France, and particularly the Interior Ministry, have long carried out a mission to protect the most sensitive community sites.

High-level security has been in place for 25 to 30 years and is not tied to the current geopolitical climate. Arfi lives under police protection, as did his predecessors. While the level of security may vary over time, the president of the CRIF, the chief rabbi of France and several other Jewish community leaders are routinely provided police protection.

They join a broader group of public figures in France who are considered targets of Islamist threats, including staff members of Charlie Hebdo and anti-terrorism judges.

“The issue of antisemitism is taken seriously by the public authorities, whether through public resources, police protection and other measures. Alongside that, there is also an effort by Jewish institutions themselves, notably through the Jewish community’s protection service, which coordinates the overall security efforts,” Arfi said.

Regardless of the political orientation of the government, Arfi said, France has maintained a high level of cooperation with Jewish institutions for at least 25 years.

While that cooperation has not solved the problem or prevented the deadliest antisemitic attacks, including the 2012 Toulouse school shooting and the 2015 HyperCacher supermarket attack, there is a genuine willingness among public authorities to work with Jewish institutions on the issue, he said.

“We can discuss what is not working, why certain shortcomings remain, and what could be done better, but the first thing to say is that, regardless of the political discourse, on a technical level there is first and foremost a commitment by the public authorities to combating antisemitism from a security standpoint,” he added.

When discussing what he described as the most recent form of antisemitism, Arfi said France was the first country to be affected and the one most severely impacted.

He said this new antisemitism is rooted in hostility toward Israel and anti-Zionism, in Islamism, and in conspiracy theories amplified by social media.

France, he said, was affected as early as the 2000s with the start of the Second Intifada, by antisemitism that was already fueled by the conflict with the Palestinians.

‘A laboratory for this new antisemitism’

While what has happened in France, Arfi said, is not a local phenomenon but a global one, he noted that the country has a particular context, given its large Jewish community and large Arab-Muslim population, both of which may identify with the conflict.

He said the situation has deteriorated over time, adding that France has become a “laboratory” for this new form of Jew-hatred.

Today, Arfi said, there are several responses in place. One is a repressive approach, involving policing, sanctions, arrests and severe penalties. The other focuses on education, awareness and pedagogy.

“Both the victims and the perpetrators of antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, [2023], are becoming younger. We have seen antisemitism enter places such as schools that had previously been relatively protected. There have been cases involving antisemitic acts among children as young as seven or eight years old. Obviously, in those cases, it says nothing about the children themselves. It says something about parents, older siblings, social media, among others,” Arfi said.

“We lived with the idea that antisemitism was an outdated prejudice that would disappear over time and with generational change. Today, time is working against us, because the younger generations are more antisemitic than the previous ones. There is therefore a real need to confront the issue directly,” he added.

These younger generations, he said, are shaped by an anti-Zionism that has become a cultural norm. It has become the banner of a generation that has adopted the language of “genocide” without questioning it.

The CRIF has a digital unit that monitors and reports content at scale to media platforms. It is recognized as a “trusted flagger,” an official status in France that requires social media platforms to give priority to its reports.

The CRIF has also developed content for social networks, including a YouTube channel and Instagram account that produce videos.

“We cannot abandon the field of youth engagement; otherwise, we are condemning ourselves to difficult days ahead,” Arfi said.

The influence of North African countries

In France, he said, Iran’s direct influence is harder to assess, as Tehran likely prioritizes Anglo-Saxon countries, partly because of the larger Iranian diaspora there, and also because it may view those countries as strategically more significant.

France, he said, is more shaped by the influence of North African countries—Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

“Morocco is currently a very favorable actor working toward dialogue with the Jewish world and Israel, but Algeria is different. Turkey also plays a significant and, in my view, toxic role in France, maintaining a very hardline stance toward Israel,” Arfi said.

“France also has the particularity of a very strong resonance of the Lebanese issue within society. The Gaza issue has had a very powerful impact as well, whereas Iran somewhat less so. That said, we are not immune to the possibility of an Iran-directed attack in the future, including one of a terrorist nature,” he continued.

While Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization in France, the country continues to distinguish between Hezbollah’s “military wing” and its “political wing,” a distinction Arfi considers unacceptable.

“The issue is not whether an organization is legitimate because it has a political branch. It is about remembering that any organization becomes unacceptable and must be opposed the moment it has a terrorist branch. We are fighting against this phenomenon,” he said.

“In France, because of particular ties with Lebanon, there is a lack of clarity regarding Hezbollah that we consider dangerous,” he added.

In the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, Paris, Arfi explained, saw fewer participants in pro-Palestinian demonstrations than other European capitals. In London, for example, demonstrations drew as many as 300,000 people, while in France the highest turnout was around 50,000.

“There are still pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and they continue to bring together both people acting in good faith and motivated by humanitarian concerns, and on the other hand agitators, manipulators, radicals, apologists for terrorism and purveyors of hate, who promote violent rhetoric,” Arfi said.

“There is regular awareness work carried out at the level of the public authorities, but we still regularly see rhetoric amounting to glorification of terrorism operating in a gray area. The most serious cases should be prosecuted,” he added.

When it comes to legislating against antisemitism, the CRIF supported the “Yadan law,” proposed this year by MP Caroline Yadan, which sought to link anti-Zionism and antisemitism but was eventually withdrawn.

“Antisemitism changes. It evolved from racial antisemitism to Holocaust-denial antisemitism in the 1980s, and today to anti-Zionist antisemitism. At every stage, it is important to have laws that specifically sanction it,” Arfi said.

In 1972, France passed the Pleven Law against incitement to racial hatred, which included antisemitism. Later, as antisemitism took on a denialist form in the 1980s, the Gayssot Law was enacted in 1990.

“France may be the only country in the world with a law prohibiting Holocaust denial—the Gayssot Law. Now that antisemitism has continued to evolve and increasingly takes the form of anti-Zionism, it seems important to me that at some point the national representation formally condemn it,” he continued.

“The idea of affirming that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism has already been expressed by the president and in many other contexts. I note, however, that this is not enough—more is needed,” Arfi said.