ON THE RICHTER SCALE of anti-Semitism, France has just registered a major quake. From October 1 to October 18, in the space of just two and a half weeks, 6 synagogues were burned down and another 24 synagogues and Jewish schools were targets of attempted arson. Stones were thrown at people outside synagogues, and Jewish kids were hounded or molested on their way to school. There was even a rare shooting: On October 9, a sniper fired an M-16 automatic rifle into the Paris Great Synagogue during the Yom Kippur service. Fortunately, nobody was hit. The police quickly sealed off the Rue de la Victoire and searched the building from which the shot had come, but the sniper was gone, leaving behind only some shell casings.
Nothing like this has happened in Western Europe since World War II. To be sure, there are anti-Semitic incidents from time to time in most European countries--even occasionally lethal attacks on Jews. In France, two major anti-Jewish operations took place in the early eighties: a bombing at the Rue Copernic Liberal Synagogue in Paris in 1980, and a killing at the Goldenberg restaurant in the old Marais district in 1982. But these were clearly the work of an extremist fringe or of terrorists sponsored by rogue states. What is happening now is protracted domestic terrorism on a large scale.
Nearly all of the attacks have been carried out by Muslims. There are about 7 million Muslims in France--and fewer than one million Jews. Most of the
Muslims are first or second generation immigrants from North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, or Turkey. Most are French citizens, either through naturalization or by virtue of their birth on French soil. Their numbers are growing, thanks to legal and illegal immigration and to a high birthrate. Most live in Greater Paris or big cities like Lille, Lyon, and Marseilles, where they make up between 20 percent and 30 percent of the population--and, more important, sometimes as much as half of the teenage population. In contemporary French parlance, the term "les jeunes" (young people) refers to this large cohort of predominantly Muslim Arab and black teenagers.
Most French Muslims are neither fanatics nor Jew-haters. In many neighborhoods, Muslim immigrants from North Africa have close dealings with Sephardic Jews of North African or Middle Eastern descent. And the principal organizations of the Jewish community (notably the Consistoire, a uniquely French body established by Napoleon, which represented Jews up until the separation of church and state in 1905 and still runs most synagogues; and CRIF, the French equivalent of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) have long supported French Muslims' chief demands. These range from public funding of mosques and community centers to official recognition of Islam as France's second religion. Similarly, some moderate Muslims may express support for the Middle East peace process and show interest in visiting Israel or doing business with Israeli companies.
That said, there is also a fundamentalist element in French Islam, with links to organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Afghan Taliban, and Usama bin Laden's group, and for this element, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are articles of faith. Moreover, its influence is growing. The radicals virtually rule the cites, the public-housing complexes where most low-income Muslims live. They manage most of the mosques. And they maintain symbiotic relations with an under-class of delinquent or semi-delinquent immigrant teenagers.
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