“We have not finished with anti-Semitism. And we must make a lucid observation of this. This anti-Semitism is even more burning, creeping, than it was in 1995, in our country, in Europe, and in so many places in the world,” Macron said.
In this station where part of the 13,000 Jews arrested in Paris and the suburbs on July 16, 1942 transited, Mr. Macron took up the words of Jacques Chirac who in 1995 had recognized France’s responsibility in the Vel d’Hiv Roundup. : “These dark hours forever defile our history. France that day accomplished the irreparable”.
From now on, anti-Semitism “can take on other faces, wrap itself in other words, other caricatures”, estimated Mr. Macron. “But the odious anti-Semitism is there, it lurks, still alive, persists, persists, returns”, he continued, evoking in turn the “terrorist barbarism”, the “assassinations and crimes”, the resurgences on “social networks” or “tomb desecrations”.
“It interferes in debates on television sets. It plays on the complacency of certain political forces. It also thrives around a new form of historical revisionism, even negationism”, he insisted, making an allusion, without naming him, to the far-right candidate for the presidential election Eric Zemmour who had notably argued that Marshal Pétain had “saved” French Jews during the Second World War.
“Neither Pétain, nor Laval, nor Bousquet, nor Darquier de Pellepoix, none of these wanted to save Jews. It is a falsification of history to say so,” replied the head of the State, considering that “those who indulge in these lies have the plan to destroy the Republic and the unity of the Nation”.
“To look our truth in the face is not to weaken France or to repent. It is to recognize everything so as not to reproduce it”, urged Mr. Macron.
The Head of State therefore called on “the republican forces of our country” to “redouble their vigilance”.
“Because yes, the mechanics of 1940 came from afar and had been nourished by hatred and anti-Semitism that had become ordinary”, he argued, calling for “never to give in, repress and punish, commemorate and instruct”.
“We will never uproot the roots of anti-Semitism if we do not at the same time raise the ferments of education and dialogue”, further pleaded Mr. Macron, who had visited the place earlier, transformed into a museum. by the Shoah Memorial.
