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Published on 17 January 2016
New Study Details French Jewish Community ‘Living With a Strong Feeling of Insecurity’
By Liam Hoare, published on the Tablet Magazine January 13, 2016
A new book called L’an prochain à Jérusalem? (“Next Year In Jerusalem?”) by the pollster Jérôme Fourquet and geographer Sylvain Manternach, argues that French Jewry is moving increasingly to the right at a time when the community is “living with a strong feeling of insecurity,” one year after the attack on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris that left four dead, and amid continued acts of anti-Semitism.
The book—based on a survey of 724 French Jews conducted by the polling company Ifop between June and August of 2015 for the Fondation Jean-Jaurès (which is affiliated with the Socialist Party)—is unusual in that France does not tend to poll on the basis of race or religion; after all, this would smack of tribalism and anti-republicanism. It was the first time Ifop has looked into the Jewish community’s religious, political, and social composition, following surveys about the Catholic and Arab-Muslim vote.
The Ifop survey titled “Enquête auprès des juifs de France” reveals a community, largely Sephardi (41%) but increasingly of mixed background (14%), in a comfortable economic and educational position overall, still sending their children to public schools (65%) and ahead of the country in terms of feeling at peace with their household income. At the same time, there is a widespread fear about security, and concern about the levels of anti-Jewish and indeed anti-Muslim feeling in French society.
Sixty-three percent of those polled reported being insulted for being Jewish, and more than half reported being subjected to anti-Semitic threats. Anti-Semitism is perceived to come from the far right and those of Muslim origin, although a majority of French Jews said that Muslims live peacefully in France, and that it is only the radicalized who constitute a menace.... Read more.