23 per cent of French Jews say they were assaulted by anti-Semites, survey finds

Police car in France (Flickr/Mic/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

In a survey about anti-Semitism in France, nearly a quarter of 1,027 Jewish respondents said they had experienced a physical anti-Semitic assault.

The results of the survey, carried out this year by the IFOP for the American Jewish Committee, were published Tuesday in Le Parisien.

In addition to the 23 per cent of respondents who said they had experienced an assault, 64 per cent said they had experienced a non-physical anti-Semitic incident.

In France, the home for some 500,000 Jews, authorities documented 541 anti-Semitic incidents in 2018, suggesting a prevalence of one anti-Semitic incident per about 1,000 Jews.

The survey also reflected a feeling of concern expressed by respondents.

Forty-three per cent of respondents younger than 35 said they felt threatened in their daily lives. A third of respondents said they avoid wearing items in public that identify them as Jews, including a kippah. An even larger proportion, 37 per cent, said they avoid installing a mezuzah on the external side of their door.

Asked about their level of confidence in the government as a vehicle for fighting anti-Semitism, 40 per cent said they trust it and 60 per cent said they trusted the police. Nearly three-quarters said they trusted CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities.