Macron embraces French Jewish Community - The Jewish Chronicle

The weather turns hot, thunderstorms explode and days lengthen so generously that the time between sundown and bedtime disappears except for the young people and tourists filling sidewalk cafes across the city.

Summer also brings 14th July, celebrated this year with new pomp and ceremony before the Parisians disappear for six weeks vacation.

Macron’s invitation to Donald Trump provoked grinding of teeth and old-fashioned anti-Americanism, but most were pleased that France could draw the US president to Paris before London and welcomed Macron’s knack for positioning France at the centre of things.

Foreign policy was supposed to be the new President of France's Achilles’ heel. So far, his audacious brand of pragmatic “realpolitik” has brought only triumphs.

The president and his energetic prime minister, Edouard Philippe, are enjoying two-thirds approval ratings and the parliamentary elections delivered a comfortable majority for the president’s party Republic on the Move.

The new government has weathered the first storm that blew up from its own base, unhappy that tax cuts were to be delayed, but the government listened. Voters want Macron to succeed, but they are already impatient for results.

On the centre left they say, “let’s give him a chance”. On the centre right they say, “let’s wait and see”.

The mainstream opposition parties are in complete disarray, with new parties springing up like mushrooms to left and right. The only coherent opposition comes from the extreme left parties of Jean-Luc Melenchon and the Communists. They systematically oppose government policy and contest the legitimacy of both president and prime minister. With clever slogans, in parliament and the media, they appeal beyond the electoral system to “the people” and do their best to wind up public opposition in the streets.

The government’s first major test will be labour market reform which has tripped up several past governments. Indeed, Macron’s entire strategy is at stake. To restore French power and relaunch Europe he needs leverage with Berlin and Brussels and that requires deep structural reforms and strict budget responsibility.

On Sunday July 16, Macron spoke at the 75th anniversary of a sinister event during the German occupation. The president clearly reaffirmed the responsibility of France in the rounding up of 13,152 Jewish men, women and children by French police and their dispatch to camps from which many never returned.

De Gaulle and Mitterrand considered the event a German affair because the true French government was in London, so Jacques Chirac was the first president to acknowledge French responsibility.

Bibi Netanyahu was the first Israeli prime minister to attend this ceremony and stayed on for talks with the president on the Middle East and the Israel-Palestine peace process.

The Jewish community was encouraged by Sunday’s events. Macron spoke with rare force frankness of France’s complicity during the Nazi occupation and recognised anti-Zionism as a new form of anti-Semitism. Jewish leaders were visibly moved by his sincerity and Bibi fell into a prolonged presidential embrace. Macron went further, calling on the courts to do full justice in the case of Sarah Halimi, the retired Jewish teacher who was thrown out of her apartment window and died to cries of Allah Akbar, a case hushed up during the election campaign.

The Interior minister has been tough on law and order, including illegal immigration, but a statement on the fundamental question of Islam in France is still awaited. President Macron is the “master of clocks” and will choose his moment. Look first for a major speech on French failures in Algeria and an apology for France’s colonial past more generally. Meanwhile, the young president with the Steve McQueen haircut is building a case for French Jews to stay put in France.

Post Script: 1) My last blog washed away Claude Goasguen (centre right) prematurely: he was narrowly re-elected in the second round. 2) the public service TV channel Arte finally screened its controversial documentary on antisemitism in France, at midnight and with editorial commentary. A dissident comment came from a courageous Palestinian Muslim resident of Berlin whose own antisemitism was acquired at home, nourished at school and in the mosque and definitively eliminated at Tel Aviv University where he met Jews for the first time.

"Reuven Levi" has been a Paris resident since 1981. He married in the United States and is father of three and grandfather of six. He is an active member of the Jewish Community