Many in France celebrated the unexpected victory of a left-wing coalition in blocking the rise of Marine Le Pen’s controversial far-right party in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. But for the country’s Jewish community – the largest in Europe – the results cast a gloomy outlook on their future, although it is unlikely to spark mass immigration to Israel, at least for now, those who spoke to Jewish Insider this week said.
“This is the worst parliament since the Shoah if you look at all the seats gained on the extreme right and all those gained on the extreme left,” Ariel Kandel, CEO of Qualita, an umbrella organization for French immigrants to Israel, told JI. “And those numbers will just keep on growing.”
Kandel explained that while Le Pen’s National Rally – the new incarnation of the openly antisemitic National Front led by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen – did not receive enough seats for the outright majority needed to run the country, it is still the single largest party in France’s 577-seat parliament, even though a coalition of far-left parties got the most number of seats. And, in terms of votes, he said, it gained the highest number. “This means that in three years from now Le Pen will probably win the presidency, so on one side we will have the extreme right wing and on the other, the extreme left wing is now very strong,” said Kandel. “And the Jews [are] in the middle.”
French President Emmanuel Macron called for snap elections last month after his Ensemble Alliance party suffered a massive defeat to the National Rally in elections for the European Union parliament on June 9. His goal, he said, was to secure support in the French parliament for his party and block the far right from possibly winning the presidency in 2027, when his second and final term as president is set to end. Ahead of the two-round election, Macron called on the French people to say, “no to the extremes” and to come together to “build a shared, sincere project that is useful to the country,” but even after the first round of voting on June 30, it was clear that the political extremes on either side of him were already on the rise.
Le Pen’s party secured a plurality in the first vote and, according to pollsters, was on track to win big in the second round too. But, in the interim, political maneuvering lead to the hasty formation of a left-wing coalition that included socialists, communists and even Trotskyists uniting under the banner of the New Popular Front and behind another controversial political figure: Jean-Luc Melechon, which managed to block the National Rally from its projected win.
Professor Gisela Dachs from the European Forum at Hebrew University in Jerusalem called the rise of both the right wing and the left wing at Macron’s expense a tragic irony as he was the one who created a new center party specifically to block out those “extremes on the side.” “What he did was to the contrary,” noted Dachs. “While some blame his personality for this, France is very much like other European countries where there has been a polarization in society and a strengthening of populist parties on the right and on the left … It has become very difficult for the center to fight back.”
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Emmanuel Navon, executive director of Elnet, the European Leadership Network, and an adjunct professor of international relations at Tel Aviv University, explained that French Jews had been very much divided on whether or not to vote for Le Pen.“Because Melenchon’s party is openly antisemitic, violently anti-Israel and its economic platform, if implemented, will turn France into Venezuela, no Jew in his right mind could vote for this party, which left the question of what was the alternative?” he said.
“France has a first-past-the-post system with a runoff, therefore people can vote for whoever they want in the first round, but in the runoff, you have to make a choice,” Navon added. “In the first round, there were many options, including Macron’s centrist party and the center-right Republican Party but they faced a tougher choice in the runoff because the parliamentary seats were often between candidates from Melenchon or Le Pen’s parties.”
With both extremist parties gaining ground in this election, Navon said the future of French Jewry is now definitely in question, although “this does not necessarily mean they are moving to Israel” just yet. “In conversations with friends and relatives in France, I don’t know any whose children are staying there,” he said, noting that many French Jewish professionals were seeking to move to the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere, not necessarily to Israel.
Kandel, a former Jewish Agency for Israel shaliach (emissary), said there has been a sharp rise in the number of French Jews inquiring about aliyah since Oct. 7 and that Sunday’s election results have sparked even greater discussion about leaving. He said that it was now up to the Israeli government to initiate a formal immigration plan for French Jewry in order to help those who are serious about moving to Israel.
“There is a lot of fear and there won’t be mass aliyah from France without a viable program,” he said. “We did a study and found that if there was a program aimed at helping those who want to go to Israel, then as many as 50,000 people will move there from France. If not, then we may only see around 2,000-3,000 people immigrating in the next few years.”