Explaining the Discrepancy of Antisemitic Acts and Attitudes in 21st Century France

Abstract

This paper assesses antisemitism in France and provides an overview of antisemitic acts and attitudes presented in survey results over the past decades. A clear rise in both the number of antisemitic incidents and the level of violence can be traced since 2000. Attitude surveys, on the other hand, do not show such a clear rise of antisemitic attitudes. There are two plausible explanations for this seeming discrepancy. The first is that antisemitic stereotypes may have changed over the years and that therefore no comparable survey data exist. Anti-Zionist forms of antisemitism, which are rarely surveyed, are likely to have become more widespread, whereas older biases contesting the Frenchness of French Jews have waned. The second is that perpetrators of antisemitic acts are a small minority of people who hardly influence the results of representative surveys. Particularly high levels of classic antisemitic attitudes can be found among Muslims and among sympathizers of the far right, and, to a lesser extent among the far left. Antisemitism seems to have radicalized within small groups of French society, including the use of extreme violence against Jews. Fringe groups of radicalized French Islamists pose an additional security threat to French Jews in particular and to society in general.