Keyword: Jews

The terrorist attacks in Paris in early January demand an awakening of French society, writes Mediapart editor-in-chief Edwy Plenel. Not one driven by the politics of fear that put the country at war, but one of democratic and social aspirations that demand equality for every member of the population and which, he argues here, is the only solution for eradicating the necrosis of hope that fuels the ‘identity’ conflict blighting France today.

© LD

Earlier this month, the south-east Paris suburb of Créteil became a symbol of the sharp recent rise in anti-Semitic crimes committed in France when a young Jewish couple were the target of a vicious attack by three armed men who had come to rob them because, the assailants explained after their arrest, they were Jewish and therefore rich. The arrested men, who repeatedly raped the young woman victim during the robbery, are also suspected of being behind the beating-up of an elderly Jewish man at his home just weeks earlier. Lucie Delaporte reports from Créteil, where over several weeks, before and after the attack on the young couple, she interviewed members of the Jewish community who spoke candidly of their fears of anti-Semitic violence and why they believe it has become rampant in a suburb once regarded as a model of co-existence between religious and ethnic groups. 

So far 4,566 Jews have left France for Israel this year, driven by country's poor economy and 'climate of anti-Semitism that is losing its taboo'.

White House warns US states not to take action that could harm talks with French rail firm SNCF which deported Jews to WW2 death camps.

Religious, emotional and practical reasons are behind the trend that has developed over the past decade, even involving reburial from French graves.

An online interactive map is available to chart the location of every child deported from France between July 1942 and August 1944.

The first nine months of 2013 saw numbers of French Jews emigrating to Israel rise 49% year-on year, while average rise from all countries was 1%.

A senior figure in the Socialist Party has angrily criticised French culture minister Aurélie Filippetti for allegedly snubbing Rivesaltes, a former internment and deportation camp in southern France which is set to become a memorial in 2015, during a recent trip to the area. The culture minister has dismissed the claims as 'absurd'. To understand the importance of the memorial site behind this political squabble, Mediapart asked historian Denis Peschanski to describe the political and historical issues at stake in a camp that revives some of the worst memories of the Second World War in France. Antoine Perraud reports.

President François Hollande led a ceremony at a former WWII internment camp at Drancy, north of Paris, used in the deportation 65, 000 Jews.

President Hollande's commemoration of 1942 Vél d'Hiv roundup of Jews was important for addressing European anti-Semitism, argues Denis MacShane.

President Hollande has recognised France’s role in the Holocaust at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of a round-up of 13,000 Jews in Paris.

Archives opened on the 'Vel d’Hiv Roundup', in which thousands of Jews were deported from Vichy France during World War Two.

In her recently-published book Causes communes (Common causes), French social anthropologist Nicole Lapierre traces the extraordinary stories of 20th-century blacks and Jews who made the causes of other peoples their own. "Running through their stories is the red thread of the communist ideal of a society stripped of inequalities and racism, on which a great many Jews and many blacks had pinned their hopes," writes Lapierre. Antoine Perraud reviews the work and presents selected portraits of those who braved danger and opprobrium by fighting for the rights of others.