In France, (some) Jews are voting far right

PARIS — If you want an indication of the effectiveness of Marine Le Pen’s efforts to detoxify her image, look no further than Serge Klarsfeld, a Holocaust survivor who spent his life hunting down former Nazis.

Presented with a choice between the hard-left France Unbowed movement and Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, the 88-year-old Jewish rights activist said he would vote for the latter “without hesitation.”

Far-right parties in Europe have “disavowed antisemitism and support Jews,” Klarsfeld said in a televised interview ahead of the country’s two-round parliamentary election on June 30 and July 7.

The unexpected endorsement reflects the extent to which Le Pen has repositioned her party since she took it over from her father, a convicted Holocaust denier who once described the murder of 6 million Jews as “a minor detail” in the history of World War II.

“Marine Le Pen’s strategy has been to portray herself as a bulwark against ‘radical Islamism,’ to protect Jews, women and gays,” said Nonna Mayer, a political scientist who specializes in the French far right.

French voters will cast their ballots Sunday in the run-off round of a tight election in which just a few percentage points of support could determine whether the National Rally can form the country’s first far-right government.

The snap vote was triggered by French President Emmanuel Macron after far-right parties raked in some 37 percent support in June’s European Parliament election; its result will be seen as a verdict on whether Le Pen has successfully moved her party into the mainstream ahead of a presidential election expected in 2027.

“Given France’s past, which includes the Vichy regime and its collaboration with the Nazis, [Le Pen] knew that antisemitism was a stain on the National Rally’s image,” Mayer added.

While accusations of racism and antisemitism continue to dog the National Rally — one of its candidates stepped down this week after a photo circulating on social media showed her wearing a swastika-adorned Nazi officer’s cap — Le Pen has successfully presented herself as a champion of France’s Jews, blaming the discrimination they face on the country’s large Muslim population.

“The best shield for our fellow French citizens of Jewish faith today is the National Rally,” Le Pen said in May. “It’s the only movement with the will, the conviction and the means to fight Islamist fundamentalism, which is the major danger facing them.”

While no polling is available on how French Jews voted in the first round of this week’s election, results in areas with large Jewish communities suggest support for the far right is growing.

Serge Klarsfeld, a Holocaust survivor who spent his life hunting down former Nazis. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The National Rally candidate in one of the electoral districts of Sarcelles, a Parisian suburb with a large Jewish community, received 27 percent of the vote on Sunday.

While that’s lower than the party’s 33 percent support nationwide, it’s nearly double the 15 percent the National Rally garnered two years ago. Support for the party is generally low in the French capital and the surrounding region.

“We’re seeing voting patterns where identity is playing a greater role than social status,” said Patrick Haddad, Sarcelles’ socialist mayor.

While the hard left did well among Muslims, the far right is gaining among Jews, Haddad said, adding that this held true not just in Sarcelles but across the country.

The growing divide reveals how much the war in Gaza has riven the country, with the National Rally emerging as one of Israel’s biggest boosters and France Unbowed taking up the Palestinian cause.

A poll commissioned by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Europe showed that 92 percent of French Jews believe France Unbowed has “contributed” to the rise of antisemitism, compared to 51 percent who believe the same of the National Rally.

“Whenever the question of antisemitism or what might be called the ‘Jewish question’ reemerges in such a way, it’s never a good sign,” said AJC director Simone Rodan Benzaquen. 

On Oct. 7, the day Hamas attacked Israel, France Unbowed released a statement claiming the assault had taken place “in the context of Israel’s intensified occupation policy in Gaza,” and mourning “the Israeli and Palestinian deaths.”

The movement then focused its European election campaign on its opposition to the ensuing war in Gaza. Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was accused of downplaying a surge of anti-Jewish acts in calling antisemitism “residual” in France in a blog post discussing pro-Palestinian protests.

The party’s opponents, such as Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti, accused France Unbowed of adopting a hardline stance on Gaza in a bid to attract Muslim voters, a majority of whom, polling shows, support Mélenchon’s movement.

Some Jewish voices have spoken up for France Unbowed. Tsedek, a French Jewish collective critical of Israeli policies, denounced what it called a “disgraceful campaign waged by the right and supporters of the State of Israel, aimed at disqualifying the left or some of its components by accusing them of anti-Semitism, because of their support for Palestinian rights.”

Klarsfeld, for his part, remains critical.

Asked whether his endorsement risked normalizing a party that targets another religious minority, Muslims, Klarsfeld responded that “Muslims have to take care of themselves” and have not “manifested their attachment to France,” Le Monde reported.