Elisabeth Borne called for “fighting anti-Semitism with all our might” on Monday, February 13, at the annual dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), where she spoke about her family history and in particular the deportation of her father. in Auschwitz.
“There are dates, which mark a destiny. For my father, but in reality for my whole family, it is December 25, 1943,” said the Prime Minister, whose father, of Jewish faith, was deported to Auschwitz. A survivor, he ended his life in 1972, when his daughter was 11 years old.
“That day, together with my grandfather and my uncles, he was arrested by the Gestapo. Then came the sealed wagons, the orders, the beatings, the humiliations. Drancy, Auschwitz. They were 1,250 at the start. Six came back,” said Ms. Borne, who was the guest of honor at this traditional CRIF meeting.
Among the survivors, “some managed to keep the taste of hope and the faith in life. Others don’t. I know that all too well,” she continued.
She also said that “in the months after he returned from the camps, [her] father started talking, until he was told that it was better to keep quiet”. “Some wanted to lay a blanket of silence over the past,” she said, adding that what “happened there” her father had “written to her in two letters.”
In front of nearly a thousand guests (politicians, ambassadors, religious, trade unionists, artists, etc.) gathered at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, the head of government called for “fighting, with all our strength, anti-Semitism, wherever he shows himself, wherever he strikes, wherever he hides.”
Slight decline in the number of anti-Semitic acts in 2022
Ms. Borne recalled her wish “that every student in France” make “at least one visit to a place of memory during their schooling”, one of the measures of the plan to fight against racism, anti-Semitism and related discrimination which she presented three weeks ago.
She also indicated that “during the year 2022, the number of anti-Semitic incidents fell by more than a quarter compared to 2021”. An allusion to the count recently published by CRIF, based on data from the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ).
“This is progress,” she said, while calling for “continue to act.” The Prime Minister finally recalled the measures helping victims to file a complaint, and pleaded for the establishment of a “single system, capable of ensuring both the withdrawal of illegal [hate online] content and then their judicial treatment “.
For his part, the president of CRIF, Yonathan Arfi, recalled the role of education in the fight “against hatred”. “Anti-Semitism is also taking on new faces,” he said, citing “Islamism,” “conspiracy rhetoric,” “hatred of Israel,” and more. For him, the company has, not “an obligation of means, but an obligation of results”.
