France’s Muslim and Jewish voters fear rising extremism

At a rundown café in the Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, Abdellah Bourezj is alarmed by the prospect of a far-right government that he says would be a “catastrophe for France”.

“Since I’ve been in France, I vote,” said the Algerian-born 70-year old retiree, who is a French citizen. “People need to mobilise to beat the extreme right.”

Although a hung parliament is likely, the far-right Rassemblement National is projected to hold the most seats after snap elections on Sunday, which could give party chief Jordan Bardella at shot at becoming prime minister.

Bardella has vowed to “combat Islamist ideologies”, and said it “is not desirable in French society” for women to wear the veil. The RN has also proposed banning dual nationals from some “strategic” government jobs.

France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations. The election, called by President Emmanuel Macron after his alliance lost widely to the RN in European elections, is adding to strains on those communities, along with tensions that have been brewing since Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.

In addition to the RN’s history of racism and antisemitism, some Jewish voters are also alarmed by the anti-Israel positions espoused by the far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), the largest group in the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front) alliance that came second in last week’s first round.

But as France votes on Sunday, voters in around 50 out of 577 districts will have to choose solely between the RN and LFI after 82 centrist candidates withdrew from the race in a co-ordinated attempt with leftists to keep the far right from power.

Haim Korsia, France’s chief rabbi, told the Financial Times: “I think it’s scandalous to vote for the far left and the far right. So we have to submit spoiled ballots that say that we want neither one nor the other, if we are faced with a choice like this.”

Some Jews feel threatened by the presence of Islamists in France, who carried out several terror attacks last year, as well as by a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents.

That has led some to consider a vote for the far right — a move once seen as unthinkable, given that the party co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen described the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history”.

Serge Klarsfeld, a French Holocaust survivor and famed Nazi hunter, shocked many by saying last month he would vote for the RN if they were in run-offs with LFI candidates.

“I would not hesitate, I would vote for the RN . . . I am faced with a far left in thrall to La France Insoumise and its stench of antisemitism and a violent anti-Zionism, and the RN that has evolved,” he said.

However, he told the Associated Press this week he would vote for a centrist in his constituency, as he does not face a contest between the RN and LFI.

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter Marine Le Pen has been courting the French Jewish community for years as part of her effort to “detoxify” the party. The RN also advocates for a stricter application of “laïcité”, France’s republican value of secularism that calls for a strict separation of religion and state.

Some 18 per cent of French Jews surveyed by Ipsos planned to back the RN in European elections last month, albeit with a small sample size.

Many Jewish voters still have major reservations. The RN pledge to bar some dual nationals from what they call “sensitive” government jobs “would imply some are more corruptible than others”, said Yonathan Arfi, president of Crif, an association of Jewish groups.

“Those serious accusations of disloyalty send us back to the Dreyfus affair,” Arfi said, referring to a political scandal at the turn of the 20th century in which a French Jewish army captain was falsely accused of treason.

But Arfi also called out LFI’s strident criticism of Israel, saying “there is a form of irresponsibility in the provocations of LFI that has stoked up hatred of Jews in France”.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon described antisemitism in France as “residual” last month, despite a sharp rise in recorded antisemitic acts since October 7.

Sarah Aizenman, who after October 7 helped found Nous Vivrons, an activist group against antisemitism, said Jews were still less likely to vote for the RN than the rest of the population, and she hoped voters would reject both parties on Sunday.

But she added: “We know that when you face terror, you turn towards populists.”

Muslim leaders are also worried. The rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, Hafiz Chems-eddine, has called on voters not to let “the demons of irrational hate divide us”.

His comments point to rising intolerance and racism in an increasingly polarised French society, and a fear of social unrest. The Paris police chief has said security forces are preparing for disorder after Sunday’s final vote.

France’s CNCDH, a government body that monitors human rights, found in its annual barometer of French people’s tolerance towards minorities that sentiment had degraded last year by 3 points — a change from the general trend of improvement over the past decade.

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Seine-Saint-Denis is one of France’s most ethnically diverse departments and has a sizeable Muslim population.

The area’s politics are dominated by the left. Left-wing candidates — many from LFI — came first in all 12 Seine-Saint-Denis seats last Sunday, with six passing the 50 per cent threshold to be elected in the first round. The RN qualified for the second round in just three districts, a sign of their traditional weakness in cities and the banlieues, or suburbs.

Bourezj, who has voted LFI in the past, admires its firebrand leader Mélenchon, who he said was “the only [politician] who says what he thinks”.

Some 62 per cent of French Muslims surveyed by Ifop after the European elections voted for LFI. The party placed the war in Gaza at the centre of its campaign.

A vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, Mélenchon and his party are considered the “only rampart” against the far right by many French Muslims, said Alice Picard, co-author of a study of more than 1,000 French Muslim voters who have chosen to leave France.

French Muslims interviewed by Picard observed a “reinforcement of suspicion and Islamophobia” that spiked after the Islamist attacks on Paris in 2015 and again after October 7. “The stigmatisation of Arab and Muslim populations that followed could reinforce this desire to leave,” she added.

A French Muslim teacher who declined to give her name said she was “terrified” by Sunday’s results. “Whatever happens I think RN will have more than 200 seats and it’s horrible,” she said. She plans to leave for Tunisia next year. “The political climate is very oppressive,” she added.

The 1905 law that set out laïcité called for the separation of religion from the state. Later, bans were enacted against religious practice in schools, and the wearing of religious signs or garments.

An aim of laïcité is to instil universal republican values and protect citizens’ freedom to practice religion, or not. Both Arfi and Aizenman backed stronger application of the principle.

But many Muslims have come to consider the principle of secularism as targeted against them. A 2023 Ifop poll found 78 per cent of French Muslims find the current application of laïcité discriminatory.

This includes Aminata Sylla, a 24-year-old student, who criticised the current government’s ban on the abaya, a long garment worn by some Muslim women, in schools.

While Sylla is determined to block the far right, the RN’s rise, together with what she sees as rising intolerance against Muslims, has left her disillusioned.

“You can see that we’re going more and more in that direction and if the RN doesn’t take power now, it will be just in a bit of time,” she said. “I don’t really want to stay here to see it.”

Additional reporting by Adrienne Klasa