Following the French election, the majority of French Jews took a sigh of relief when Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen. A staggering 90% of the French Jewish community opposed Le Pen, whose father was a known Holocaust denier. Le Pen won 34% of the votes throughout the country. The Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem mentioned that while French Jews were happy that Macron won, the majority remained skeptical of their safety in France.
Over the past few years, tens of thousands of French Jews left the country to make aliyah to Israel following a series of anti-Semitic incidents and terrorist attacks that rocked the French nation. The most infamous cases of anti-Semitic violence included a massacre at a Jewish school in Toulouse and the shooting in the kosher Hyper Cacher grocery store following the Charlie Hebdo massacre. More recently, French Jews have nearly had their fingers sawed off by attackers and an Orthodox Jewish woman was stabbed and thrown out a window as late as April. Following the election, Macron’s offices were defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti.
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