A recent March poll from the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) found that nearly 9 in 10 Jewish college students in France have experienced anti-Semitism on campus.
According to the French magazine L’Express, 89 percent of the 405 French Jewish students surveyed in the poll said that they had experienced some form of anti-Semitism on campus, which included tropes, jokes about the Holocaust and Jewish stereotypes. Of those students, 85 percent said they had been subjected to an anti-Semitic trope, 75 percent said they had been on the receiving end on Jewish and Holocaust jokes and 19 percent said they had been subjected to anti-Semitic “aggression.”
Additionally, 19 percent of the surveyed Jewish students who were subjected to anti-Semitic acts said that they did nothing about them because they didn’t want face retaliation from those who perpetrated the anti-Semitic acts.
Forty-five percent of the 1,007 non-Jewish students surveyed said they had witnessed an anti-Semitic incident, an additional 63 percent said that Jews have been “unfairly” scapegoated. However, 18 percent said that Jews exploit the Holocaust to further their own gain and 17 percent said that Jews wield “too much power” and wealth.
According to French government statistics, anti-Semitic incidents increased by 74 percent and anti-Semitic assaults increased in the country by 270 percent from 2017 to 2018.
The full results of the poll can be seen here.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.