Fallout from Mideast bloodbath brings tension to French streets

By CATHERINE FIELD

PARIS - Israel's bloody invasion of the West Bank has prompted a surge of tension among the huge Muslim and Jewish communities in France, shaking the country's faith in its long history of secularism and tolerance.

Pro-Palestinian groups and pro-Israeli organisations are staging rival demonstrations where police struggle to hold them apart, while an ugly rash of arson attacks and vandalism, blamed on angry Arab teenagers, has been aimed at synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and schools.

Mercifully, no one has been killed so far in these assaults, and the few injuries have been minor. Even so, Jewish leaders are worried. Some are starting to adopt a bunker mentality, accusing the media of stoking ill-feeling towards Jews that could spell a return to the 1930s. Others find this absurd and paranoid. Among ordinary Jewish citizens, the common response is simply to keep their heads down.

"It's getting very dangerous," says Patrick Gaubert, head of an anti-racist group, LICRA. "In the Jewish community, the feeling is divided. Some don't dare to talk about attacks against them, and others want to create their own security militia."

The attacks include the destruction of a synagogue in the southern city of Marseille; attacks against a Jewish family in a Paris suburb; the throwing of stones at a bus transporting children from a Jewish school in a racially mixed area of the capital; and an assault on a group of footballers from a Jewish club in the Paris suburb of Bondy by a masked gang wielding metal bars.

France is home to 700,000 Jews and four million Muslims, more than any other country in Europe. Tensions between the communities can be traced to the start of Palestinian Intifada in September 2000.

Feelings reached boiling point this month when Israel attacked Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank in response to a string of suicide bombings that left more than 100 Israelis killed. Since then, night after night, TV screens are playing back emotional pictures of Palestinian resistance and Palestinian civilians who have been killed, orphaned or seen their homes bulldozed by Israeli troops, and also of Jewish victims of suicide bombers.

For many young Frenchmen of Arab descent, already marginalised by life on grey concrete housing estates, it is heady stuff. They feel "Islam is in danger," says sociologist Farhard Khrosrokhavar. "They feel symbolically to be part of the struggle."

French Muslim leaders have loudly and repeatedly denounced the anti-Semitic attacks, branding them an assault on Islamic values but also a boost for Sharon. "All citizens must be vigilant in the face of attempts to exploit the events related to the Israeli-Palestinian war," said the organisation Young Muslims of France.

The Jewish community's response has been more hawkish. The Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), the biggest umbrella of Jewish organisations, staged a major rally in Paris on April 7 that chose to focus less on the threat of anti-Semitism than on a show of support for Israel.

That position was criticised by some Jews. "We hoped that the big demonstration would have been just against anti-Semitism. Then it would have had the support of everyone. But the CRIF wanted to link the issues," said David Chemla of the French Friends for Peace Now. A rally staged by Chemla's organisation was attacked by a gang of far-right Jewish youths wielding baseball bats and knives, who also stabbed a policeman in the stomach and beat up a TV cameraman.

French political leaders, led by President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, the frontrunners in the first round of next Sunday's presidential elections, have spoken with a united voice on the crisis. "These are scandalous acts that go against the very foundations of the French identity," Chirac said, referring to the attacks on Jewish sites. "They must be fought with all our strength."

Severe condemnations have been coupled with increased security at Jewish sites - police are now on 24-hour watch at 44 of the 59 Jewish schools in Paris and synagogues in sensitive areas are fenced off and patrolled. At least 39 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, but the suspected assailants seem to have acted individually and spontaneously, and are not part of any known organisation.

Beneath the official position, however, there is a nuanced spectrum of opinion. Some commentators say the term "anti-Semitic" is too loaded to apply to events that are specifically tied to the bloodshed between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Others, touching on one of the most sensitive issues of all, suggest the threat of violence among Jews and Muslims is caused by "multi-culturalism" - that new immigrants are not educated sufficiently in French values, thus helping to create pools of ancient, festering prejudices.

"I think the public authorities in our country have shown too much indulgence towards all forms of ethnic and community identity politics," left-wing former Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, said. "The Republic should not tolerate any foreign conflict being imported onto its soil."

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