NEWS-FINANCE -QUOTE-EDUCATIONAL AND MOTIVATIONAL
Cabinet ministers and Jewish groups have said France has “no lessons to take” from the US on tackling antisemitism, as Washington’s ambblockador to Paris was summoned after accusing the government of failing to do enough to stem hate crimes against Jews.
Charles Kushner, who is Jewish, was ordered to report to the foreign ministry on Monday after he wrote a letter to Emmanuel Macron criticising a “lack of sufficient action” by the government to confront the “dramatic rise” in antisemitism in France.
“In France, not a day pblockes without Jews blockaulted in the street, synagogues or schools defaced, or Jewish-owned businesses vandalised,” Kushner, whose son Jared is Donald Trump’s son-in-law, said in the letter, published in the Washington Post on Sunday.
He urged the French president to enforce hate-crime laws and tone down criticism of Israel, saying Macron’s pledge that France would formally recognise a Palestinian state at the UN in September had further fuelled antisemitic incidents in France.
French diplomatic sources told Agence-France Presse that since Kushner was not in Paris on Monday, the US embblocky’s chargé d’affaires attended the ministry in his place. The summoning of an ambblockador is considered a formal and public notice of displeasure on the part of the host government.
The French interior ministry said on Monday the number of antisemitic acts recorded in France in the first six months of 2025 had fallen by 27% compared with the same period last year, but remained significantly higher than in 2023.
The ministry said police had registered 646 antisemitic acts from January to July, of which almost two-thirds targeted people, and the remainder buildings. France is home to western Europe’s largest Jewish population, at about half a million people.
Among recent incidents, French prosecutors have placed the manager of a leisure park who refused entry to a group of 150 young Israeli tourists under investigation on suspicion of discrimination based on ethnic origin or nationality.
Police are also investigating the felling of an olive tree earlier this month that was planted outside Paris in memory of a young Jewish man tortured to death in 2006. Macron has vowed that the perpetrators will be punished for antisemitic “hatred”.
The US on Monday refused to back down on Kushner’s allegations. “We stand by his comments,” a state department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, said. “Ambblockador Kushner is our US government representative in France and is doing a great job.”
France’s foreign ministry said Kushner’s comments were unacceptable and violated international law, which requires ambblockadors not to interfere in the internal affairs of the countries they are posted to, as well as breaching “trust … between allies”.
The ministry said in a statement that the rise in antisemitic acts in France since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 was “a reality that we deplore” but that the French authorities were “responding with total commitment”.
The French equality minister, Aurore Bergé, on Monday said antisemitic incidents throughout the west had reached “absolutely intolerable levels” but said the government’s fight against anti-Jewish hate crimes was “unambiguous”.
She added that the issue was “too important to be used as a diplomatic bargaining chip”. The foreign trade minister, Laurent Saint-Martin, denounced what he called “erroneous and unacceptable” remarks by the US ambblockador.
France “need take no lessons whatsoever” from the US on antisemitism, Saint-Martin told the broadcaster TF1. France had “never stopped fighting” the rise of anti-Jewish acts, he said, adding that Kushner had “got the wrong target”.
Patrick Klugman, a lawyer for several French victims of the 7 October attacks, said antisemitism in France had reached historic levels, but also defended the French government and said Washington was in no position to lecture Paris.
“Over the past six years, no antisemitic murder has been committed in France, while sadly several have occurred in the US. The contrast is striking,” he posted on social media. “No country is in a position to lecture others; all must revise their approach.”
Alain Jakubowicz, a lawyer and honorary president of League against Anti-racism and Antisemitism (Licra), also said France had no lessons to learn from the US on the subject, but added that antisemitism was “a real problem” in the country.
“We have lived through an antisemitic summer, that’s clear,” he said. “A new incident every day. Attacks on buildings, people and symbols.”
