Surveying the recent history of anti-Semitism in France, Shmuel Trigano argues that French politicians and intellectuals have simultaneously denied and encouraged hatred of Jews:
At the time of the Iraq war in 2003, President Jacques Chirac pursued an anti-American and pro-Arab policy. There were huge demonstrations in the streets against the United States and Israel. Because he attributed decisive influence over the Pentagon to Jewish Americans, Chirac feared [that] “American Judaism” would pressure Washington to turn against France if the extent of anti-Semitism in France became public. On one of his visits to Washington he brought with him a delegation of Jewish leaders tasked with declaring that there was no anti-Semitism in France in order to “calm” American Jews. The Chirac years were the darkest for French Jews in this period and put a negative stamp on the future fight against anti-Semitism. . . .
Taking its cues from the government, French society refused to recognize anti-Semitism for what it was. . . . The eruption of violence [against Jews by Muslim immigrants], it was similarly claimed, did not emanate from French society, but was rather an “imported conflict” from the Middle East. This dishonest phrase surreptitiously impugns the nationality of French Jews by grouping them together with recent immigrant communities, many of whose members are often dual citizens of North African countries. Neither could the violence be called anti-Semitic, it was further claimed, because only the Nazi, extreme right could be so termed. . . .
In the face of all this, the official institutions of French Jewry kept silent [about rising anti-Semitism] for an entire year. Finding themselves left to their own devices, each Jew, or at least the most conscientious among them, underwent a process of growing isolation from French society. . . . In every milieu, social as well as professional, Jews were reproached, summoned to apologize for or distance themselves from Israel, from Ariel Sharon. Those with dignity and honor refused this deal—one that would have offered them access to society and recognition; they preferred to leave behind the public sphere, with its enmity toward Israel and Jew-bashing.
Read more on Jewish Review of Books: http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1534/a-journey-through-french-anti-semitism/