FRANCE: The French Prime Minister has strongly condemned the rise in anti-Semitic acts in France. From Lara Marlowe, in Paris
"I cannot accept that violence be used against French people because they are Jews," Mr Lionel Jospin said at his last press conference before Sunday's presidential election. "Every act of violence against Jews is violence against our entire national community, an attack on the most fundamental principles of our republic."
Acts of anti-Semitism were "particularly intolerable after the tragedy of the Holocaust", Mr Jospin continued. That they were often committed "in relation to the tragedy in the Middle East . . . in no way diminishes their seriousness".
France drew up a joint declaration by the interior ministers of the countries most affected, including Germany, Britain, Spain and Belgium, and has asked that the problem be discussed at the April 25th meeting of EU interior and justice ministers.
Mr Jospin said graffiti accounted for nearly two-thirds of the 361 acts against Jews or Jewish property since the Israeli offensive on the West Bank started last month. Two synagogues had been burned down, there were two cases of attempted arson, 19 violent acts against Jewish people, 34 death threats and 21 attacks on property. There was no evidence of an organised network and those arrested "were not fundamentalist fanatics".
Fourteen men have been imprisoned in connection with the attacks and 1,300 policemen have been deployed to protect synagogues, schools and buildings.
French authorities are caught between demands that they try to curtail Israel's military occupation of Palestinian land and the anger of French-Jewish leaders, who reject any criticism of the Israeli prime minister, Mr Ariel Sharon.
The French Central Jewish Consistory criticised the foreign minister, Mr Hubert Védrine, after France approved a resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on April 15th. The resolution condemned Israel for mass killings of Palestinians. The Jewish Consistory claims the vote shows "the partiality of French policy".
In an interview with Le Monde, Mr Védrine said France had watered down the resolution which the Consistory found offensive. He repeatedly stressed US, not French, involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Europeans could not agree to meet to reconsider the EU's Agreement of Association with Israel, and failed to reach consensus on the peace plan presented by the German foreign minister, Mr Joschka Fischer.
The Europeans considered "that the priority at the moment is to help Colin Powell succeed in his difficult mission," Mr Védrine said. Washington would obviously provide the "backbone" for a still hypothetical intervention force between Israelis and Palestinians.
Mr Védrine said an international conference, as proposed by Mr Sharon, "cannot be a substitute for the application of UN resolutions" and would be meaningless if the EU and Mr Yasser Arafat were excluded.
Also yesterday, Mr Jospin said he had "drawn lessons" from the murder of eight city councillors by a mentally ill gun enthusiast on March 27th. Henceforward, he promised, the government would enforce the November 2001 Law on Daily Security, to which he added nine new regulations.
Mr Daniel Dugléry, the former inspector general of the French police and a supporter of President Jacques Chirac, said earlier that the annual number of crimes and misdemeanours increased from 500,000 to as many as 12 million over the past three decades, yet France now has the equivalent of 35,000 fewer policemen.
In immigrant suburbs, "policemen run away from youths every day", Mr Dugléry added.
"We need a new concept of law enforcement, adapted to urban guerrilla warfare."