There’s no shortage of reasons to have doubts about France’s current push to confront “renewed forms” of antisemitism — the subject of a bill slated for debate before the National Assembly in mid-April.
This winter, the same parliament held a moment of silence for neofascist militant Quentin Deranque, who died from wounds sustained in a February 12 street fight between far-right and anti-fascist activists in Lyon. Thanks to an exhaustive sweep of the slain militant’s social media activity by Mediapart, Deranque can be said to present a textbook sample of France’s antisemitic past and present.
“We have to make all high schoolers read it,” Deranque wrote on X of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. He professed admiration for homegrown French fascists like Lucien Rebatet, author of The Ruins, an infamous antisemitic tract from the Vichy era of Nazi-collaboration. A “murderous slut” is how he termed Simone Veil, the Holocaust survivor and former health minister credited with France’s 1975 legalization of abortion.
That kind of antisemitism isn’t the target of the so-called Yadan law now being debated by lawmakers. Rather, this bill is a brazen attempt to silence France’s Palestine solidarity movement. Named after the bill’s chief promotor, Caroline Yadan, an MP aligned with President Emmanuel Macron, the legislation is set to be discussed before parliament starting on April 16.
It has its roots in the controversial definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which encompasses criticism of the State of Israel. Its adoption could have France following in the footsteps of Germany, which in 2024 adopted legislation to enforce public adherence to the IHRA definition. The IHRA now boasts as many thirty-five “member countries” according to its own tally, overwhelmingly in Europe and North America.
The major innovation of the Yadan law would classify as a criminal offense calls for the “destruction”…
Auteur: Harrison Stetler
