“France has always been antisemitic,” former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner told Paris Jewish station Radio J on Sunday in a conversation about Israel, the war in Gaza, and French antisemitism.
“Antisemitism is the belief of fools,” Kouchner, who served as foreign minister from 2007 to 2010 under president Nicolas Sarkozy, told the interviewer.
“When there’s nothing to think about, one turns to antisemitism. When there’s any kind of misfortune, one turns to antisemitism. It’s a very profound sickness.”
When asked whether he thought the antisemitism that sparked the Holocaust was happening again, Kouchner replied that “it never really stopped.” Kouchner’s paternal grandparents fled the Russian pogroms and moved to France, only later to be deported to and murdered in Auschwitz.
“France has always been antisemitic,” he continued, adding that hostility had nevertheless increased in the last year.
This comes after the Jewish Community Protection Service told The Jerusalem Post in July that there had been a 1000% increase in recorded incidents of antisemitism in 2023 compared to the previous year, setting a new baseline norm for antisemitism in 2024.
Part of the reason for this hatred of Jews, he told the interviewer, lies in lack of education; “Many young French people don’t even know what the Holocaust is.”
Kouchner lamented a lack of knowledge of Jewish history: “We talk about colonization, about hatred, about territorial expansion, about genocide. But we talk about genocide without knowing what it really means.”
He did, however, add that, with the war, many might find it hard “not to be antisemitic when you see the destruction caused by the Israeli army in Gaza.”
When questioned whether he was saying it was normal to be antisemitic, he said it was “not a normal,” but not a surprising reaction, given the war, devastation, and destruction.
Speaking on the war in Gaza and in the wider region, Kouchner said that while he fully supported Israel’s right to retaliate, and indeed exist, he felt the response to the October 7 massacre was disproportionate.
“It’s a disproportionate war. Israel’s military response after October 7 was legitimate and necessary – we expected it. But to continue like this and only have a military solution is a mistake.”
Nevertheless, he stated that “It was impossible not to react to those who killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 300 people.”
While Koucher said Israel’s reaction was “extremely brutal,” he continued that “it is the way it is; Israel had to react.”
“Israel wants to live, I want Israel to live,” he added.
Kouchner stressed that his issue was not with Israel, rather with war. As a doctor as well as a politician, he added that he had spent his life “trying to stop wars, with varying success, and also helping to treat the wounded.”
Arms embargo
Despite his aversion to war, Kouchner strongly criticized French President Emmanuel Macron’s call to withhold arms from Israel.
Macron said earlier this month that shipments of arms used in the conflict in Gaza should be stopped as part of a broader effort to find a political solution.
“It saddened me to hear the President of France – and therefore France – speak like that,” he said. “He is not an ignorant man; he knows the history of the Jews.”
He added that Macron had shown a “level of aggression towards Israel” that he felt was not justified.
“I’m not saying it’s hatred, but his level of condemnation of Israel is disproportionate to what happened,” he continued.
“It was a grave error.”