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| French Jews veer to political right
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French President Jacques Chirac meeting the CRIF Board at the Elysee Palace in Paris
Photo: Présidence de la République
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PARIS (EJP) – The political right is gaining ground within France’s Jewish community with more than 40 percent of French Jews supporting a right-wing party, according to the results of an opinion poll published Monday by the daily newspaper “Le Figaro”.
The survey conducted by the IFOP polling institute shows that the centre-to-right UDF and UMP governing parties have the support of 33,3 percent of Jews while this figure is only 29,1 percent for the total French electorate, which represents a difference of more than 10 percent.
The left-wing parties – socialists, far left and Communists – get 37,4 percent of the Jewish voters against 35,6 percent for the whole French electorate, a difference of 1.8 percent. Women are more left-leaning than men.
The extreme-right “Front National” only get 4.9 percent against 10.1 percent in the French electorate, the poll shows.
The poll was conducted among a representative electoral sample of 1,000 people between January 2004 and February 2006.
The presidential election will take place in 2007.
Change of sides
A previous survey among French Jews, conducted by the Jewish Unified Social Fund (FSJU) in 2002, showed that 43 percent of were voting for the left, 41 percent were voting centre and only 14 percent supported parliamentary right.
According to Le Figaro, feelings of insecurity, the failure of integration within the immigrant community and last year’s riots in Paris’ suburbs are the main reasons of the change within the Jewish community.
Another factor which is apparently influencing the “Jewish vote” is the important representation in this electorate of “shopkeepers, professional independents and managers”, Jerome Fourquet, a IFOP official, said.
“Before the left was the large majority, but today, because of the anti-Semitism, an important part of the young Jews turned to the right,” he added.
“The fact that the National Front has only 4,9 percent in the poll show that French Jews are very reluctant to vote for the party’s leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose declarations are seen as anti-Semitic.”
“Many Jews feel gratitude towards interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who heads the right UMP governing party,” says Roger Cukierman, president of CRIF, the umbrella group of Jewish secular organisations, said in comments on the poll.
Sarkozy takes position
Since he became minister in 2002, Sarkozy showed a firm attitude against the rise of anti-Semitic acts in the country and regularly repeated his support for the community.
He attended the demonstration in Paris after the murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Jew who was kidnapped and tortured, and more recently visited the Jewish Marais quarter where members of a Black extremist group threatened Jews.
“It’s also under the current right-wing government that France’s external policy towards Israel has changed,” Cukierman noted.
The death of Yasser Arafat, Israel’s pullout from the Gaza strip and the murder of Lebanese Prime minister Rafiq Hariri have changed France’s position and led to a warming in the relations between France and Israel, he added.
While some say that “there is no Jewish vote”, the presence of representatives of several political parties at a dinner last week in Paris to celebrate the 25 anniversary of the Jewish radio “Radio J” shows that is becoming at stake ahead of the 2007 presidential election.
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