Story by Canaan Lindoor/jns.org
French Interior Ministry data showed incidents targeting Jews formed the majority of roughly 2,500 acts against religious groups recorded last year.
Most of the documented hate crimes targeting a religious group in France last year were against Jews, who make up 0.6% of the population, the French Interior Ministry said on Friday.
The ministry’s report of anti-religious hate crimes for 2025 counted 1,320 antisemitic cases out of 2,489 offences targeting all religious minorities. The report was published on the 20th anniversary of the murder of Ilan Halimi, a French Jew who in 2006 was abducted, tortured and murdered by a gang of criminals, many of them of foreign descent, who targeted Halimi because he was Jewish.
French President Emmanuel Macron planted an oak tree in the garden of the Elysée Palace in memory of Halimi on Friday at a commemoration ceremony. Several trees planted in Halimi’s memory have been vandalized in recent years.
Accompanied by Anne-Laure Abitbol, Ilan Halimi’s sister, the president said in a speech that, “When a Jew is in danger in the homeland, it is the homeland itself that is in danger.” He added: “We cannot airbrush French Jews out of the republic’s family photo.”
Last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Macron of “fueling antisemitism” by turning against Israel, which has been the subject of an arms embargo and condemnations by France for Israel’s war against Hamas. Macron has rejected the allegation.
On Friday, Macron acknowledged that antisemitism had become more pronounced in recent years.
“In 20 years, and despite the resolute efforts of our police officers, gendarmes, judges, teachers and elected officials, the antisemitic hydra has kept advancing,” he said.
The overall number of anti-religious hate crimes has remained roughly the same as in 2024, the interior ministry’s document said, but antisemitic incidents decreased by 16% from 2024.
Anti-Christian incidents rose by 9% to 843 incidents and anti-Muslim cases also rose by 88% to 336 cases.
The number of antisemitic incidents documented in 2025 is the third highest since 2000, smaller only than the tallies of 2024 and 2023 (1,570 cases and 1,676 cases, respectively). Antisemitic incidents spiked dramatically after Oct. 7, 2023. In 2022, the interior ministry documented 436 antisemitic incidents.
