France: Are Jews moving to the Far Right?

Michel Gurfinkiel writes:

Marine Le Pen

[...] observers scolded Cukierman for an additional remark about Marine Le Pen, the president of the Far Right National Front. While distancing himself from the National Front, Cukierman expressed the view that Marine Le Pen was personnally beyond reproach when it came to antisemitism, and that the reason why she was not invited to the Crif dinner, along with other political leaders, was that she had not disapproved in a clear way of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen’s own anti-Jewish statements. [Mr. Cukierman told Europe 1: "The National Front is a party for which I would never vote but it’s a party which today doesn’t commit violent acts. Let’s be clear: all the violence [against Jews] is now committed by young Muslims."]

Cukierman’s words were understood by some journalists or political activists, especially on the Left, as a veiled endorsement of Marine Le Pen and her political program. Moreover, the same observers contend that the French Jewish community as a whole is moving to the Far Right. According to Ifop, a leading pollster, 13,5 % of the Jewish voters supported Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential election, a sharp increase from the 2007 presidential where only 4,3 % of the Jewish voters had supported Jean-Marie Le Pen. Still, French Jews were still less behind a national average of 18 %.

Clearly, Marine Le Pen has been successful with French voters at large in recasting the National Front as a «democratic» party, that cannot be confused with neo-Nazi groups in Hungary (Jobbik) or Greece (Golden Dawn). In a by-election in an heretofore solidly Leftwing consistuency in Eastern France, National Front candidate Sophie Montel carried almost 49 % of the vote on February 10. She was able to rally both previously Leftwing voters and about one half of the local conservative voters. 

Moreover, a report on antisemitism in France released three months ago by Fondapol (the Foundation for Political Innovation), a respected think-tank shows that National Front supporters, while somehow more receptive to antisemitism than other political milieux, are on the whole not antisemitic. 61 % of the National Front voters say they see Jews as full fledged nationals just like other French citizens. While lower than an global average of 84 %, it is still an almost two thirds majority. A fact all the more relevant considering that only 23 % of the National Front voters see French Muslims as true nationals.  Likewise, 68 % of the National Front voters agree that fighting antisemitism and racism « in order to prevent another Shoah » must be a national priority. Again, it is lower than a national average of 85%. But it is a very high proportion nevertheless.

Even if crude antisemitism is not the issue, most French Jews still feel uneasy about the National Front. They are concerned that a National Front government may restrict some Jewish practices (like shechitah, Shabbath or wearing a yarmulka) in the name of secularism. They note also that Marine Le Pen has never expressed explicit support for Israel (even if its voters tend to be rather pro-Israel) and that it indulges in problematic anti-UE, anti-American and pro-Russian politics.