Caroline Yadan, a member of Macron’s party, who has been elected as the new member of the parliament for district 8, which covers French citizens residing outside France, including in Israel, acknowledges, in a conversation with European Jewish Press,  that the ‘’the situation has never been so worrying since the Shoah.’’

‘’We will never form an alliance with the extreme-left France Unbowed  or there will be no majority,’’ she said.

As I looked at the results of the second round of France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday on French television, I saw a rally of hundreds of supporters of the extreme-left wing France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party celebrating their victory within the so-called ‘’New Popular Front.’’ What I saw, let me think that this was happening not in central Paris but rather in Ramallah : there were more Palestinian flags than French flags, keffiehs and slogans like ‘’Fuck Israel and the Zionists’’ and calls for an intifada.

The extreme-left party, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is known for its anti-Israela nd antisemitic positions, as well as its connections to radical Islamist elements. It is supporting BDS (Boycott-Disinvestment-Sanctions), it has put Gaza and the ‘’Palestinian resistance’’ at the center of its electoral campaign in order to gain Muslim voters. In his ‘’victory’’ speech, Mélenchon, who sees himself as a future Prime Minister,  said his government would recognize a ‘’Palestinian state.’’

When France reported a 300% increase in antisemitic attacks in the first three months of 2024, Mélanchon argued that French Jew-hatred was “residual.”

Two weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, Mélanchon accused Yaël Braun-Pivet, the Jewish president of the National Assembly, then paying a solidarity visit to Israel, of “camping out in Tel Aviv to encourage the massacre.”

Mélenchonr’s party is a key member of the left-wing New Popular Front, an alliance of the Extreme-leftists, Socialists, Communists and Greens, which was created on the eve of the elections to block the extreme-right National Rally led by Marine Le Pen, which won the first round of the election for the 577 seats of the National Assembly.

”A catastrophe. The anti-Semites have all been elected. Macron has given himself to the real enemies of France. Fortunately, there is no majority. The country is ungovernable,” journalist Martine Gozlan of Ecran de Veille monthly, told European Jewish Press.

The NPF won the largest number of seats at Sunday’s runoff, in large part due to agreements struck with French President Emmanuel Macron and his centrist Renaissance party, to initiate a ‘’Republican front’’ to stop the rise of the National Rally.

The three groups which emerged on top after the vote count, the NPF, Macron’s Ensemble and the National Rally, fell short of a majority ;

Many French Jews reported feeling betrayed by Macron for siding with a coalition which includes an antisemitic party. The Jewish community has suffered from a rise in antisemitism in recent years. Many of its members have chosen to emigrate—to Israel or other countries—due to a sense of insecurity. Macron’s alliance with the far-left could exacerbate this trend and lead to a new wave of emigration.

Caroline Yadan, a member of Macron’s party, who has been elected as the new member of the parliament for district 8, which covers French citizens residing outside France – including in Israel, acknowledges, in a conversation with European Jewish Press,  that the ‘’the situation has never been so worrying since the Shoah.’’

‘’Even if the election result is worrying, the extreme-left LFI made ten seats less than it had before the election. The problem is that these LFI MPs include the worst of the worst,’’ Yadan, who calls herself a Zionist Jew,  added, calling LFI  ‘’the leading anti-Semitic party in France’’.  She said the ‘’unnatural’’ NFP alliance was only set up for the elections. ‘’I think the left is going to explode very quickly in this unnatural alliance.’’ ‘’There are red lines that we must not cross,’’ Yadan, who succeeds MP Meier Habib, said.

She believes that ‘’it is totally unlikely that anyone from LFI will make it to Matignon,’’ the seat of France’s Prime Minister.

‘’There will be no coalition with LFI. No one is contemplating an alliance with this nauseating, anti-Semitic extreme-left, which advocates terrorism, is the mouthpiece of Hamas and  dreams only of chaos and violence.’’

‘’We will never form an alliance with these people, or there will be no majority,’’ she told EJPress. ‘’Instead, there is a moderate centre  with which we can form a coalition, including Les Républicains on the right and the moderate Socialists, with the presidential group.’’

‘’I think that the Republican bloc remains solid, and in any case, my election and my presence at the National Assembly have the aim and objective not only of continuing to fight anti-Semites of all stripes, the hatred of Jews and of denouncing the origin of this hatred of Jews, but also of gathering around me and educating people about what constitutes this ambient climate that we are experiencing as Jews. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past two years at the French National Assembly.’’

Asked what she tells to those Jews who say it would have been better to put the National Rally in power rather than the far left?

”Let’s not be fooled by the RN’s window-dressing; I’ve always fought the RN, which since 2013 has adopted a strategy of saying that we’re going to have to seduce French Jews, we’re going to have to adopt their language. As soon as the Jews are no longer afraid of us, then the French won’t be either.” This is exactly what has happened, especially since October 7.

Marine Le Pen, who had spent years shedding the National Rally’s extremist, antisemitic past, to the point of ejecting her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party’s former leader, has reached out to Jews.

Her protege, Jordan Bardella, who serves as party president, has repeatedly made pro-Israel and pro-Jewish statements since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre. But Bardella didn’t know how to answer when asked if Jean-Marie Le Pen is anti-Semitic.

‘’Behind the scenes at the RN we have anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying executives,’’ affirms Yadan.

”I’m a fighter of extremes. You can’t fight the extremes by voting for one of them. I’ve denounced the LFI as the leading anti-Semitic party in France, the mouthpiece of Hamas, and I’ll continue to denounce it because it’s this Islamism carried by this party that is the enemy of the Jews. But let’s also beware of the extreme right.

Who is Yadan’s ideal candidate for Prime Minister?

‘’Gabriel Attal (the current Prime Minister) of course, he is the most competent, the best among us, He is brilliant and has clear republican values. But it seems difficult to me in the current configuration.’’

Attal, who is also Jewish, offered his resignation to President Macron on Monday after his party failed to win a majority in the elections. Macron refused the resignation and Attal will remain in  office at least until after the Paris Olympics due to begin in three weeks.

For Crif, the umbrella  group representing French Jewish institutions, stressed that ‘’it is urgent that Jean-Luc Mélenchon understands that, New Popular Front (NFP) or not, he doesn’t have a majority. Only one camp has won, that of the French who wanted neither the RN nor LFI. The French people have refused the diktat of extreme opposition, and a majority of MPs are neither RN nor LFI. This is the only political reality. This is, once again, the moment of truth for the republican left: no coalition is possible with those who have been running an anti-Semitic campaign for months,’’ it said.

‘’Republican MPs – left, right and center – must, in all conscience and responsibility, learn to discuss and work together,’’ Crif added.