France: Tax protests often feature anti-Semitic rhetoric

Via JTA:

Protests in France over taxes are giving rise to anti-Semitic rhetoric, a prominent watchdog group said.

The head of the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism, or BNVCA, Sammy Ghozlan, said Wednesday that “the ‘Yellow Jackets’ movement has an anti-Semitic base that repeats conspiracy theories about Jews and power.”

Launched last month as a protest against a proposed rise in diesel and fuel taxes, the movement has expanded into an anti-government drive featuring violent riots that have shut down the French capital several times. Some protesters have been filmed carrying signs and chanting slogans describing French President Emmanuel Macron as a “whore of the Jews” and their “puppet.”

Such language “was present from the very beginning of the protests and persists,” Ghozlan said, although he added that it exists “on the margins” of the protests. France has seen a 69 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2018 over the past year.

read more