A Hanukkah ceremony held at the Elysée on Thursday, December 7, on the first day of the Jewish holiday, has sparked outcry throughout France's political spectrum. Two days before the 118th anniversary of the French 1905 law separating church and state, Chief Rabbi of France Haïm Korsia lit the first candle of Hanukkah in the presidential palace, alongside President Emmanuel Macron, as filmed and shared on X by Rabbi Mendel Samama. The scene quickly drew criticism in the name of France's strict secularism, or laicité.
It was an "error," said Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF). "It's not the place, within the Elysée, to light a Hanukkah candle, because the republican DNA is to stay away from anything religious," he said on Friday morning on Sud Radio. "I was surprised. I wonder why Macron did it, it's not his role" as president of the Republic, added Arfi, who was also present at the ceremony on Thursday evening.
The political opposition, on all sides, has condemned the ceremony. "As nice as it is, Hanukkah is a religious holiday. No elected official of the Republic should take part in it, like any religious event," said Jérôme Guedj, the Parti Socialiste's (PS) delegate on issues of secularism. "Hanukkah at the Elysée! Easter soon, Eid?" blasted François Ruffin, from the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI) party. "Macron as president is a 10-year-old kid with a little chemistry kit, but [with] real nitroglycerine and real matches," rebuked Socialist Senator Laurence Rossignol, a vice-president of the Sénat, in a reference to the inflammable political context caused by the war between Israel and Hamas.
"How can one refuse to take part in a civic march against anti-Semitism on the incongruous and fallacious grounds of safeguarding national unity, and celebrate a religious festival within the presidential palace? To my knowledge, this is a first. [It's] contrary to secularism," said David Lisnard, the mayor of Cannes, from the right-wing Les Républicains party. On the far right, the Rassemblement National (RN) MP Julien Odoul was quick to condemn "a president who will have never understood France."
The Elysée explained on Friday morning that the event was, first and foremost, supposed to be the presentation of an award that has existed since 2011, the Lord Jacobovits Prize for combating anti-Semitism and defending the freedom to practice Judaism. "This is not a religious celebration but a cultural event linked to a religion. A historical event set in the calendar of that religion," said an Elysée spokesperson.
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