Toulouse murderer Mohammed Merah (2012) In Moliere’s play, religious huckster Tartuffe almost undoes credulous Orgon (saved only by the King’s miraculous intervention). At today’s University of La Rochelle, a new play has been produced in which the hypocritical manipulation of the gullible—this time in the service of anti-Semitism—is the work not of an evil character but of the playwright and the approving university. Richard Prasquier, former president of the umbrella organization of French Jewish communities (CRIF), criticized the play, “Your Children’s Role in the Global Economic Recovery,” as “grossly anti-Semitic.” In it, Jewish money lender Goldberg tries to force a family to invest in evil causes, while characters named “Cohen 1” and “Cohen 2” financially exploit the memory of the Holocaust. “The humor is difficult to handle but this is not an anti-Semitic show,” claimed University Vice President Catherine Benguigui. Humor, indeed! This theatrical episode is a minor indication of an ominous trend that may ultimately drive many Jews out of France: • In 2000, France2 Middle East correspondent Charles Enderlin went live with five “takes,” presenting them as Israelis “targeting” Palestinians and killing the young Muhammad al-Dura, cradled in his father’s arms. All this was manufactured by a still unrepentant France2 and Enderlin. • In 2001, Réseau (Network) Voltaire—a former publishing house—intensified marketing conspiracy theories, including the “thesis” of 9/11 Truthers that Israel and the U.S. government were responsible. • In 2002, manufactured reports in French media about Israel’s so-called “Jenin massacre” proliferated. • In 2003, Sébastien Selam, a popular 23-year old Jewish DJ, known to his fans as DJ LamC, was murdered by an Arab neighbor. His throat was slit twice, and his face mutilated, in a crime the French press virtually covered up. • In 2006, Ilan Halimi, a 21-year-old Jewish cellphone salesman, was kidnapped and tortured for 32 days in a basement by the self-styled “gang of the barbarians,” which consisted of members led by Yussuf Fofana, a self-avowed Salafist. The initial sentence in Fofana’s trial three years later was mild compared to the crime. • In 2009, gas cylinders were lit next to a synagogue in Saint-Denis, outside Paris. • In 2011, French Jewry experienced knife attacks, severe beatings, the carving of a Swastika in the hand of a young girl, among other violent incidents. The radial right Front National still refused to repudiate Jacques Le Pen’s dismissal of the Holocaust as “an insignificant detail.” And traditionalist Catholic leader Father Regis de Cacqueray attacked the Vatican for reach out to Jews and Judaism: “How can anyone entertain the thought that God will be pleased with the Jews who . . . crucified the Son of God . . . .?” • In 2012, an ADL poll showed the percentage of French respondents embracing at least three of four core anti-Jewish stereotypes jumping to 24 from 20 percent in 2009. • In March 2012, in Toulouse, Algerian-born, Mohammed Merah, shot three children and a rabbi in the Jewish school Otzar HaTorah. A petty criminal converted to radical Islam, he also shot a paratrooper and two uniformed soldiers in southern France. “There are several dozens, perhaps even several hundred, potential Merahs in our country,” French Interior Minister Manuel Valls observed. Indeed, Facebook brimmed with fan pages honoring the dead murderer. • From March to April, 2012, the Jewish community watchdog (“Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive”) logged 148 anti-Semitic incidents—one fourth, violent. • In September, 2012, a Molotov cocktail was hurled into a kosher store in the Paris suburbs of Sarcelles, sparked “Le Monde” to editorialize about an anti-Semitic peril. • In March, 2013, at the Aubagne International Film Festival, Israeli Yariv Horowitz was beaten unconscious by a gang of young Arabs at a showing of his pro-Palestinian film, “Rock the Casbah.” • That same month, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) called on French authorities to condemn the decision by Dominique Lesparre, mayor of the Paris suburb of Bezons, to grant honorary citizenship to Majdi al-Rimawi, one of four Palestinians responsible for the 2001 assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi. How is the French public and government reacting to these troubling trends? Support for legislation against anti-Semitism, such as the 1972 Pleven law the 1990 Gayssot laws, appears to be in decline not the reverse. “The capacity for indignation seems to be on the wane,” declares Jonathan Hayoun, president of the “Union des Etudiants Juifs de France.” As monitored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and reported in “The Tablet,” Internet anti-Semitism is exploding in France. Last year, #unbonjuif (#agoodJew) became viral, with a barrage of vicious anti-Semitic “jokes” (such as “#agoodJew is cooked medium rare or well-done”), the hashtag became the third-most Tweeted in France for a few days. The UEJF took legal action against the site. This January, French courts ruled that a reluctant Twitter must identify its racist users in order to allow French authorities to prosecute them for violating hate speech laws. In July 2012, President François Hollande, in the wake of the Toulouse attack, for the first time linked current French Jew hatred to Vichy complicity in the Holocaust. Yet the French foreign ministry remains silent about Hezbollah’s murder of Israeli civilians at the same time as it now threatens to label Hezbollah “terrorist” for killings in Lebanon. “PJ Media” has passed on a report by French investigative journalist, Elisabeth Schemla, estimating 7 million Muslims in France—including as many as 2 million embracing “radical Islam.” The London beheading of soldier Lee Rigby overshadowed the near-fatal stabbing, just recently in Paris, of 21-year-old soldier, French Cédric Cordiez. In custody is “Alexandre D.,” a 22 year-old-convert to Islam. If soldiers aren’t safe in London or Paris, who is?