Jean-Luc Moudenc, mayor of Toulouse: “For a long time on the far right, anti-Semitism has spread elsewhere”
By Pascal PALLAS
Published on
“Anti-Semitism not only has not disappeared, but is even experiencing a worrying resurgence…” This is the message, the alert, that the mayor of Toulouse Jean-Luc Moudenc went through the speech he gave on Tuesday, August 19, 2022, during the commemoration of the 78e anniversary of the Liberation of the city.
The first Toulouse city councilor took an angle on his speech on this interpellation, relying on the example of resistance left by Mgr Jules Saliège, archbishop of Toulouse under the Occupation. Eighty years ago, on August 23, 1942, this courageous prelate stood up against the internment and deportation of Jews by having all the churches of his diocese read a pastoral letter urging Christians to mobilize for their Jewish “brothers”.
From the extreme left to antivax
“So how can the strong words of Jules-Géraud Saliège concern us eight decades later? The answer to this question, we have it unfortunately before our eyes, in the news of our country as sadly illustrated by a series of facts and retentive crimes in recent years”, expressed Jean-Luc Moudenc.
“For a long time the prerogative of the far right, anti-Semitism is still present there, as shown by the revisionist campaign of a candidate in the first round of the recent presidential election, but it has tried elsewhere: on the far left Corbyn; it is sometimes confused with anti-Zionism; it follows in the most hateful speeches pronouncing the delegitimization of the State of Israel; it overlaps other times with Islamism; it infiltrates the movement of yellow vests and then the processions of antivax; it insinuates itself into currents of Islamo-leftist thought that it is such bad form to denounce when they undermine the republican objectivity of this or that institution of higher education…”, detailed the mayor at length.
“New non-assumed complacency”
According to Jean-Luc Moudenc, the anti-Semitism of this first third of a century is “more subtle than that of yesteryear, but just as perverse, since it is in truth sneaky”.
Alongside an asserted anti-Semitism, which I described as active, other attitudes also developed, passive or implicit, made up of ambiguities, accommodations, laissez-faire or silences. On the next generation in French political life today, particularly in the ranks of extremist forces.
“Vigilance to discern anti-Semitism or the new non-assumed complacency from which it benefits is therefore more necessary than ever, as well as the courage to fight these excesses”, continued Jean-Luc Moudenc for whom anti-Semitism “is not no minor racism”.
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