2,200 Jews ‘left France’
Around 2,200 Jews leave France in the first six months of the year amid what Jewish groups describe as a rise in anti-Semitism, with violent clashes increasing along with rising social tensions as Israel launches the Operation Protective Edge military campaign in Gaza. The number of emigrants in the same period a year earlier is only 600. France has the largest Muslim and Jewish communities in Europe and many of France’s Muslims are of Arabic origin from North Africa and relate to the Palestinian cause more than British Muslims, who are mostly South Asian in origin, while left-wing politics and France’s colonial history in Algeria also contribute to tensions. Georges Asaraf, the Jewish owner of a pizzeria in the suburb of Sarcelles whose windows are destroyed as protests turn violent:
They were after Israelites but we have always lived together as brothers