France Vows To Protect Remaining Undefaced Jewish Tombstone

Police will reassign officers who until now have guarded synagogues, yeshivas, and other Jewish community institutions.

Paris, December 19 – The government of President Emmanuel Macron made a formal commitment today to safeguard the one Jewish grave marker in the country that has yet to suffer antisemitic vandalism.

A spokesman for the president addressed journalists at press conference outside the presidential residence Thursday and informed them that Macron would speak at an official ceremony next week at the site of the remaining undefaced tombstone. Philippe Toulittel-Toulêtte told reporters at Elysée Palace that Mr. Macron had decided to act following a rash of anti-Jewish hate crimes and the common perception that authorities have done little to reassure Europe’s largest Jewish community that they can feel safe and welcome in the Republic of France.

“This important step will help demonstrate our country’s commitment to the continued security and warmth we want to provide to our Jewish citizens,” he declared. “Far too many incidents have challenged that security and warmth, and we hereby vow to protect the last unvandalized tombstone with whatever resources we have.”

To provide the funds for protecting the tombstone at a cemetery outside the capital, the police will reassign officers who until now have guarded synagogues, yeshivas, and other Jewish community institutions, according to a Minister of the Interior representative. “What are the odds of an attack on some Jewish target, anyway?” the representative wondered. “It’s not like we’ve had deadly violence against random folks in a deli or anything. Also, our official policy is that something about Palestine makes it justified.”

Jews in France have faced terrorism, intimidation, harassment, and increased antisemitic rhetoric in recent years, with the deadliest and most notorious incidents coming from immigrants associated with Islamist groups such as the Islamic State. Surveys of the country’s 500,000-strong Jewish community have born out concerns that many see no future in France for Jews, just seventy-five years after the Holocaust exterminated two thirds of them across the continent.

Officials hope the commitment to safeguard the tombstone will help French Jews feel better about staying. “France would not be France without its Jews,” continued Toulittel-Toulêtte. “This applies as much to the living as to the departed. We will do our utmost to protect this last undamaged monument from thugs, hooligans, supremacists, criminals, and otherwise-innocent young men of the Islamic faith who lose all sense of morality when they smoke marijuana and start doing things such as knocking over Jewish tombstones and throwing Jewish senior citizens out of high-rise windows.”

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