Why are the French (in general) still so anti-Semitic? I have encountered a considerable amount of anti-Semitism in Paris--is this normal for France, or just something I'm not used to, being from New York?
Tough question… Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t have any “reason” or politic movement in mind that could explain it. All I witness is that anti-semitism is mostly expressed out of individual beliefs than real anti-semitic organisations. That’s why the goverment has hard time fighting it without preaching. France is a non-religious country, the government can’t protect a religion specifically. All they can do is fighting discrimations, what they do very strongly. The government admitted France’s responsibilty in anti-semitic war crimes and highly condems new discriminations with tough sentences in trials. It’s definitely not normal or accepted, yet it happens… I’m really saddened to see that more and more young are anti-semitic. I honestly don’t know why or where they got that idea that it was cool to be this way. I don’t know, really :(
Actually, there’s a huge controversy happening in France as we speak because Twitter allowed the hashtag “UnBonJuif” (AGoodJew) in the trends, which had caused a huge anti-semitic storm on the website. This was going along with the hashtags UnBonMusulman (AGooodMuslim) and UnBonRacist (AGoodRacist) but UnBonJuif was the most used one. This happened as the movie “La Rafle” about Vel d’Hiv (incredible movie btw!) aired on French TV. The goverment asked Twitter to delete that hashtag and associations will press charges against Twitter and/or the twitter users. However it’s complicated since Twitter is an American company hence our French laws against discrimination can’t really apply.
