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France’s political parties bitterly divided over Paris march against anti-Semitism

A call for a weekend march in Paris against anti-Semitism sparked bitter squabbling between political parties Wednesday despite a surge in anti-Semitic incidents in the country.

The hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party said it would boycott the “great civic march” called by the speakers of the country’s two houses of parliament for the French capital Sunday.

At the same time, the participation of the far-right National Rally (RN) is creating a headache for the left and centre-left, who argue that the renamed National Front (FN) founded by convicted Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen has no place in such a gathering.

Olivier Veran, the spokesman of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government, said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne would take part but insisted the RN “did not have a place” in the march.

Communist leader Fabien Roussel said he would “not march alongside” Marine Le Pen’s RN, accusing it of being descended from people who were “repeatedly condemned for anti-Semitic remarks” and who “collaborated” with Nazi Germany.

“It’s important that there is a march against anti-Semitism,” Roussel told public broadcaster France 2.

“We will perhaps march in another place, but not with them,” he insisted.

The two speakers of the French legislature, Yael Braun-Pivet of the National Assembly and Gerard Larcher of the Senate, announced a “general mobilisation” late Tuesday against the upsurge in anti-Semitic acts in France.

But the LFI’s firebrand leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, immediately dismissed the idea, describing it in a post on X, formerly Twitter, as a meeting of “friends of unconditional support for the massacre” in Gaza.

The party doubled down on their stance Wednesday saying, “It is not practical to fight anti-Semitism and all forms of racism alongside a party that has its origins in the history of collaboration with Nazism.”

It was “hypocrisy to claim to denounce anti-Semitism alongside political leaders who constantly use religion as a pretext of shameful discrimination,” the party said.

Despite the controversy, far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she would not be deterred from taking part.

“I call on all our members and voters to come and join this march,” she said Wednesday.

“The more people there are, the better,” she said, adding that she was ready to march “at the back” if her attendance was such a problem.

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