“I believe that in Europe, after the Shoah, it isn’t the same thing when a synagogue is burnt down or when a public building is burnt down,” said France’s Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

He was speaking Wednesday as special guest at a breakfast event organised in Paris by CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish secular organisations.

In the history of the CRIF breakfast events, no politician has ever attracted such a crowd.

With 250 people attending, Sarkozy attracted almost ten times as many people as Francois Hollande, the secretary general of the Socialist Party last month.

However, press was forbidden by the minister’s cabinet, allowing him to address the Jewish community more freely without worrying that his words would be quoted by the media,” said a member of the CRIF who preferred not give his name. “It is anti-democratic.”

During his speech, the minister was lauded for his stance on Israel and his fight against anti-Semitism.

“I am determined to continue to fight against anti-Semitism,” he said.

The presidential candidate for the 2007 election has taken a hard line on anti-Semitic attacks in France. He forced police to label attacks on Jewish-owned buildings anti-Semitic, rather than simple vandalism, as was the case before he became minister.

Fighting anti-Semitism

“In 2003, I gave rise to a small polemic by indicating that anti-Semitism was seriously underestimated in France," Sarkozy pointed out.

“I believe that in Europe, after the Shoah, it isn’t the same thing when a synagogue is burnt down or when a public building is burnt down.”

He recalled the number of anti-Semitic acts had dropped by 47 per cent in 2005 compared with the year before.

But Nicolas Sarkozy has stigmatised the suburbs where “most of these crimes take place." 

He said if anti-Semitism continues, it is because it has not been repressed strongly enough: “There must be a zero tolerance policy toward the actions and words of anti-Semites.”

Regarding attacks in Israel, Sarkozy said that “these barbarian acts cannot be justified. There is no excuse for cruelty”.

For the president of the UMP governing party, there is only one solution: “to fight terrorism”.

He added: “There is no question of engaging a political dialogue with the Palestinian government of Hamas as long as it won’t satisfy three elementary conditions: renunciation of violence, recognition of the international engagements subscribed by the Palestinian Authority, recognition of the right of Israel to live in peace.”

“It is normal that the European Union decided to suspend its direct assistance to the Palestinian Authority,” he said.

About the recent attacks in the touristic Dahab resort in Egypt, Nicolas Sarkozy noted Hamas had condemned them: “There would be thus legitimate attacks, those where one kills the Jews as in Tel Aviv, and the others!”.

He recalled that little time after his election as the president of the UMP, he made his first trip to Israel and met Ariel Sharon: “I think I was one of the first to have congratulated him for his peace initiatives!”

Tough politics

On the eve of the 2007 presidential election, the minister also treated the two main controversial topics of his campaign: crime prevention and positive immigration.

There must be a zero tolerance policy toward the actions and words of anti-Semites.

He took Youssef Fofana, convicted leader of a gang which kidnapped and murdered 23-year-old Ilan Halimi earlier this year, as an example to illustrate about his first project.

Sarkozy at a Paris demonstration against anti-Semitism to protest Ilan Halimi's murder, last March. At his right is Simone Veil, president of the Foundation for the Shoah memory.   AFP Copyright 2006

“He didn’t become a monster in few months. He degenerated towards the most barbarian violence since his youth. That’s why the school system of health must be completely changed. We have to intervene early in supervising behavioural problems from the age of six.”

Sarkozy was defensive towards voices from the opposition in France who accuse him of using extreme right wing rhetoric to gain votes.

“It is not because Jean-Marie Pen (leader of the extreme-right Front National party) has an idea and deals with a topic that Republicans should abstain from speaking about a subject.”

“When Le Pen says a correct thing it would be an error to abstain from saying these things."

However, about immigration Sarkozy wanted to reassure the audience by distinguishing himself from Le Pen. “My project and his are radically different. Le Pen doesn’t want any immigration. I want selected immigration”.

“But who can blames me for wanting to regain votes that were ours? Voters who were disappointed by the policies of the right went to Le Pen. Now we have to make them come back to the republican camp.”