France: A Tale of Two Demos

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20153/france-two-demos
France: A Tale of Two Demos
by Amir Taheri • November 19, 2023 at 4:00 am
Sunday's march... attracted over 100,000 people, five times larger than the pro-Palestine demo.
There were also many Muslim figures [Sunday] including imams of mosques who ignored the "advice" of the Grand Mosque of Paris not to attend.

Anti-Semitism isn't a byproduct of the Israel-Palestine conflict; it is an evil in its own right and a threat to what even the politically correct Macron says he upholds as "values of our civilization."

Anti-Semitism challenges the fundamentals of what one may call modern civilization. It denies the existence of human beings as individuals with inalienable rights beyond religious, ethnic, racial and other backgrounds. It dissolves the concept of citizenship as the basis of the relationship between the individual and the state.

Anti-Semitism also violates the principle under which guilt by association and collective punishment could not be accepted. Worse still, it rejects the principle of innocence until proven guilty by a court of one's peers, thus sapping the roots of civilized legal systems.
A week after Paris witnessed a march in support of the "Palestinian cause" it hosted another march, this time against anti-Semitism. It attracted over 100,000 people, five times larger than the pro-Palestine demo. Pictured: The demonstration against anti-Semitism in Paris, on November 12, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy van der Hasselt/AFP via Getty Images)
A week after Paris witnessed a march in support of the "Palestinian cause" it hosted another march on November 12, this time against anti-Semitism.

Ostensibly provoked by the ongoing war in Gaza the two marches may persuade the French to take a closer look at the messages they convey and their impact on French politics.

Despite denials by its organizers, the leftist and extreme left parties, the first march, which took part on the right bank of the River Seine, was clearly anti-Israel, at times with anti-Semitic undertones.

The second march, last Sunday, was organized by Senate President Gérard Larcher and National Assembly Speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet, both on the right, who insisted that it was not meant as a show of support for Israel's war in Gaza but as a defense of the Republic.

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