Rue Manin is "empty," lamented 47-year-old Audrey. "It's deserted." In the heart of Paris's 19th arrondissement, the Buttes-Chaumont neighborhood is home to a large Jewish community. "Take off your kippah!" she told her son Elie, 14, who was wearing his royal blue yarmulke. During the day, the teenager's Jewish denominational school sent a message to all parents advising them to "drop off their children quickly in the morning and not hang around" in front of the school, to be "vigilant on the way" and "to take off kippahs." Three days after the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel's response, many Jewish French citizens fear "tensions and reprisals against Jews in France as a sign of support for the Palestinian people," Audrey worried.
However, fear did not stop them from demonstrating their support for Israel in Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Nancy, Nice, Lille and Paris. On Monday evening, Ana, 41, was one of some 16,000 people (according to police figures) who marched from Place Victor-Hugo, in the 16th arrondissement, to the Trocadéro, accross the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, answering the call of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), among others. "The Hamas attack was dramatically cruel, Israel's response is going to be dramatic. Everything in this war is going to be dramatic, for the Palestinian people, for us here too; obviously, it's going to come back to bite us," Ana fretted.
Abigail, too, was convinced. She's 26 and this was the first time she'd gone to a demonstration. The young woman is "getting really fed up with this hatred of Jews." In France, she doesn't feel protected, but "in Israel, they know how to do things. Despite the events, over there I feel safe." She hopes to make aliyah as soon as she has completed her studies in business and sustainable development.
The procession was packed with political figures, including Yaël Braun-Pivet (Renaissance, President Emmanuel Macron's party), president of the Assemblée Nationale; Olivier Véran, government spokesperson and minister delegate for democratic renewal; Stanislas Guerini, minister for the civil service; Valérie Pécresse (Les Républicains, LR, right), president of the Île-de-France region; Xavier Bertrand (LR), president of the Hauts-de-France region; and Laurent Wauquiez (LR), president of the Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne region. Other participants included former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni, LR president Eric Ciotti, MP Boris Vallaud (Parti Socialiste) and Senator Yannick Jadot (Green).
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