France's Jews Consider the Unthinkable: Voting for a Party With an Antisemitic Past - WSJ

PARIS—Serge Klarsfeld is a world-renowned Nazi hunter, a historian of the Holocaust and a moral authority in France who has pushed the country to reckon with its dark history of antisemitism.

That is why many in France were shocked this week when Klarsfeld defended the far-right party of Marine Le Pen, which counts among its founders a former Nazi paramilitary soldier. Klarsfeld, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, said that the main threat to France’s Jews now comes from the far left and that he wouldn’t hesitate to vote for Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, in the coming parliamentary elections if the alternative were a coalition of leftist parties, the New Popular Front.

“The National Rally supports Jews, supports the state of Israel,” Klarsfeld said on national television. “When there is an anti-Jewish party and a pro-Jewish party, I will vote for the pro-Jewish party.” Klarsfeld’s comments are the fruit of a rapprochement between French Jews and the far right that is reordering French politics and helping push the National Rally to the doorstep of power. The National Rally’s antisemitic past long made it radioactive to Jewish voters and much of the French electorate; the party’s founder, Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, was convicted of antisemitism several times for calling the Nazi gas chambers a “detail” of World War II history.

Now the taboo is fading. The National Rally’s outreach to French Jews, particularly in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, has solidified the party’s place in the mainstream of French politics, helping put it on track to win the most seats in the parliamentary elections, which conclude next month. French President Emmanuel Macron called for snap parliamentary elections after the National Rally trounced his centrist party in European elections this month. Polls show the National Rally leading in the first round of the French elections set for June 30, followed by the New Popular Front.

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Many French Jews, however, are wary of the National Rally. Despite the pro-Jewish and pro-Israel rhetoric of the party’s leaders, Jews fear that antisemitic sentiment is still strong among the party’s rank-and-file. There is also concern that the National Rally’s policies would damage the French economy.

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