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A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...and kosher supermarket massacres, Valls told me that if French Jews were to flee in large numbers, the soul of the French Republic would be at risk.
The choice was made by the French Revolution in 1789 to recognize Jews as full citizens, Valls told me. To understand what the idea of the republic is about, you have to understand the central role played by the emancipation of the Jews. It is a founding principle.
Valls, a Socialist who is the son of Spanish immigrants, describes the threat of a Jewish exodus from La Belle France this way: If 100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that La Belle France is not La Belle France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, La Belle France will no longer be La Belle France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.
| To be historically accurate, as a commenter at Instapundit pointed out, failed French Republics aren't all that rare... |
Valls made it a point, early in our meeting, to show me the desk used by one of his predecessors, the Jewish prime minister (and Dreyfusard) Leon Blum. Jews were sometimes marginalized in La Belle France, but this was not Spain or other countriesthey were never expelled, and they play a role in the life of La Belle France that is central, he said.
Valls, who on Saturday declared that La Belle France was now at war with radical Islam, has become a hero to his countrys besieged Jews for speaking bluntly about the threat of Islamist anti-Semitism, a subject often discussed in euphemistic terms by the countrys political and intellectual elite. His fight, as interior minister, to ban performances of the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne (the innovator of the inverted Nazi salute known as the quenelle) endeared him to the countrys Jewish leadership, and he is almost alone on the European left in calling anti-Zionism a form of anti-Semitism.
| Valls is correct to call out Islamicist anti-semitism and fascist anti-semitism. When he calls out socialist anti-semitism I'll begin to listen to him... |
| Another commenter from Instapundit: You import a bunch of people who have hated Jews for over a thousand years, don't demand that they assimilate, and then anti-Semitism is on the rise. Quelle surprise. |