France is home to Europe's largest Jewish and Arab communities. This is a source of richness, reflecting the country's centuries-old history as a land of welcome and immigration. But it also brings with it the risk of seeing the Israel-Palestine conflict transposed to France. This is not a new danger. The time is long gone when Jews and Arabs in France, after the death of Malik Oussekine (1986) or the desecration of the Jewish cemetery in Carpentras (1990), demonstrated their solidarity.

The failure of the Oslo peace process, the attacks of September 11, 2001, then the conflicts in Iraq and above all Syria, have all contributed to exacerbating frustrations and resentments, to the point of giving rise to French jihadism. The substitution of religious identities for social references, the rise of Islamism and, in parallel, of anti-Semitism long denied, the ambiguities of anti-Zionism in a context of urban ghettoization and the partial failure of the Republican promise of equality, have fuelled a crisis of secularism and fractured left-wing parties and anti-racist associations. Against a backdrop of school and urban tensions, the endless series of attacks and jihadist attacks, some targeting Jews, provoked a reflex of national unity, while exacerbating divisions and fears.

Since October 7, a resilient yet fragmented and exposed France has been confronted with the shock of Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel. For the Jews of France, the trauma is twofold: Not only does it reawaken the racial logic of the Holocaust and undermine Israel's status as a country of refuge, but it also provokes, in France, an outbreak of anti-Semitic acts that recalls a tragic history. For the Arabs of France, the flood of images of the victims of the bombardments on Gaza and the attacks in the occupied territories can only instigate unease and anger.

Is it possible to point out that the Jews of France are no more responsible for the abuses committed by a far-right government than the Arabs of France are for the terrorism of Hamas? No more than a Frenchman of Jewish culture or religion is required to condemn Benjamin Netanyahu before expressing his horror at the pogroms of October 7, should a Frenchman of Muslim culture or religion be required to apologize for the crimes of Hamas, or to disavow Hamas in order to have the right to express his emotion about the deaths in Gaza.

Associating people with a religious or cultural identity ignores the diversity of individual backgrounds and points of view. It feeds a dangerous mechanism: By locking everyone into the pain of "their own," we tend to minimize that of "others" and encourage the importation of conflict. This is what Jean-Luc Mélenchon [leader of radical left party La France Insoumise] is doing by refusing to recognize the crimes against humanity committed on October 7. By urging every Muslim to show loyalty and contrition, we lend credence to the suspicion of widespread sympathy with terrorism and a mechanical link between immigration and Islamism. This is what Marine Le Pen [leader of the far-right Rassemblement National party] is implicitly doing when, under cover of an unconditional defense of Israel, she blows on the embers of anti-Arab racism.

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