In the 1890s French churchmen were calling for the extermination of French Jews, then the Dreyfus Affair & fate of French Jews in WW2! 
There has been Christian antisemitism in every Christian country, not specifically in France. Actually, the Church was more antisemitic in many other European countries, especially in Eastern Europe.
And, of course, not all churchmen were antisemites. My grandfather (as well as dozens of other Jews) was saved by a French Catholic priest during WWII, and if it wasn't for this Righteous Gentile, I wouldn't be here today.
then the Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus Affair at the end of the nineteenth century literally torn France's society apart. A considerable proportion of the French population were outspoken supporters of Dreyfus, despite all the anti-Dreyfus propaganda by a few influential Jew-haters in the military and in the political circles. Without this popular support, Dreyfus would not have been rehabilitated a few years after his unfair conviction. Today, a big statue of Drefus stands in the middle of the highest military training college in France and Dreyfus (who was a very assimilated Jew by the way) is considered as a great patriotic hero by the French.
& fate of French Jews in WW2!
The Vichy regime is by no means representative of the French Republic. On the contrary, it was a momentary collapse of all the major principles and values on which the French institutions have been founded since 1789, brought about by a catastrophic military defeat. The Vichy regime did not represent France's nation, it was a creation of the German occupiers.
Only a small minority of French people actively collaborated with the Nazis. There were actions of resistance despite the fact that they were very difficult and dangerous in a country that was OCCUPIED BY THE NAZIS, and those who did this paid a very high price. Some villages who had protected Jews were destroyed and their entire population massacred. The rule was that when one German was killed, the Germans randomly murdered a hundred citizens. It took a lot of courage and even heroism to defend Jews in those circumstances. And yet, approximately 75% OF FRENCH JEWRY WAS SAVED, Baruch Hashem. That is why France is today home to the third largest Jewish population in the world.
The vast majority of the French population were neither monsters nor heroes, they were ordinary people who were afraid and powerless and simply tried to survive. Most of them did not inform against Jews, but neither did they sacrifice themselves. Before you judge them, think honestly about what YOU would have done in their position, if you were not Jewish and if you had children. The real culprits were the members of the political and the military elite, who miserably failed in the battlefield against the Germans, much to the surprise of Hitler, who expected much more resistance, and then who participated in the criminal institutions that collaborated with the German Nazis.
The pillar of the French nation is not the tragic temporary episode of the Vichy regime, it is the French Revolution, which made Jews free and equal citizens.
And which nation or people can claim to have cared for European Jews during WWII anyway ? America, which did not even bother to bomb the railways leading to the death camps ? The judenrats in Israel who did not even want to save the lives of 600,000 Hungarian Jews in exchange for a few thousand trucks ? The British, who barred Jewish immigration in "Palestine" during the 1930s and sank ships of Shoah survivors ?
Topic: One Day in the Life of a Jew in France (Read 5705 times)