Country grappled with Oct. 7 and a resurgent far right.
Hate crimes are on the rise in France, new data shows, as the country grapples with increased racial tension tied to the conflict in the Middle East and the unprecedented popularity of the far right heading into this summer’s EU election.

The French interior ministry reported that crimes “of a racist nature” jumped 32 percent from 2022 to 2023. Such crimes doubled in the last quarter of 2023, after the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas and the war Israel launched against the militant group in retaliation. The number of antisemitic acts quadrupled, the ministry found.

The surge of antisemitic incidents spurred mass rallies against antisemitism in fall 2023. Antisemitic acts cut deep into the national psyche given the memories of France’s collaboration with Nazi Germany in World War II.

The rise in hate crimes also comes amid a surge of popularity for the historically anti-immigration French far right. The National Rally, France’s most popular far-right political party, is on pace for a historic win in the upcoming EU election. Jordan Bardella, the party’s 28-year-old leader, is the second-most popular politician in France, behind only former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe.

“It is quite clear these elections on June 9 are a referendum against being submerged by migrants,” Bardella said at the party’s first campaign rally.

Overall, law enforcement found that 15,000 crimes were committed “based on ethnicity, nationality, race, or religion,” in 2023, up from 12,600 in 2022.

There were 8,800 victims of racist behavior and 4,200 people charged with hate crimes, authorities said. Foreigners of African descent were the most-targeted victims, the report found.

https://www.politico.eu/article/hate-crimes-racial-tension-booming-france/