80,000 March in Paris to Protest Anti-Semitic Acts

Tens of thousands of French men and women, including President Francois Mitterrand, Roman Catholic Church leaders and political figures from the right and left, joined a massive march here Monday to demonstrate their revulsion at the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in southern France last week and a wave of other anti-Semitic incidents in recent months.

Police estimated the turnout at 80,000 to 200,000.

Just before demonstrators massed at the Place de la Republique for the 1.5-mile march to the site of the Bastille, another Jewish graveyard desecration was discovered, this time in the politically tense Paris suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois. Local officials said vandals painted swastikas on six headstones at the cemetery and damaged 32 other graves.

The extreme right-wing National Front political party has especially strong backing in Clichy-Sous-Bois.

The new incident, the fifth episode of vandalism at a Jewish grave site in France in four years, added a sense of urgency to the “silent procession” called by Jewish community leaders as a demonstration against the recent resurgence of racism and anti-Semitism in France.

Specifically, they were reacting to the vandalizing last week of a Jewish cemetery in the southern town of Carpentras, near Avignon, where police found desecrated graves and the unearthed body of an 81-year-old man impaled on an umbrella.

Joining the demonstrators midway through the three-hour procession was Mitterrand, the first French head of state to take part in a non-governmental, mass demonstration since the Allied liberation of France in 1944.

“Respect for the living is tied to respect for the dead,” Mitterrand said. “The mission of justice and the police is to preserve the rights of everyone.”

Other prominent leaders participating in the demonstration included Prime Minister Michel Rocard; Mayor Jacques Chirac, a former Gaullist prime minister; Auschwitz survivor and political leader Simone Veil, French Cardinal Albert Decourtray and Communist Party leader George Marchais.

Marchais, like Socialist former Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy, like many other non-Jewish demonstrators, wore a yellow Star of David pinned to his coat to demonstrate solidarity with persecuted Jews.

During the World War II occupation here, German soldiers and French fascist sympathizers forced Jews to wear the six-pointed patches to identify themselves on the streets of the French capital and other cities. Some of the demonstrators Monday said they wore the paper stars to express their objection to a new spate of right-wing literature in France dealing with “identification of Jews.”

“There are a lot of new anti-Semitic books now,” said Daniele Cahn, 50, “dealing with ‘How to Recognize a Jew’ and other such topics.” Cahn, who as a child survived German occupation under a false identity, said the graveyard vandalism is just one of several symptoms of anti-Semitic sentiments that have emerged recently.

Like many others in the crowd, she blamed demagogic right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front, for “creating a climate that encourages anti-Semitism.”

In a television appearance earlier this week, Le Pen claimed that Jews have too much power in French newspapers and magazines--”like Bretons in the French navy and Corsicans in the Customs Services.”

He did not urge his followers to participate in the march, and his deputy, Bruno Megret, accused mainstream politicians of trying to capitalize on the desecrations. Le Pen denounced the cemetery vandalism last week.

In 1989, Le Pen created a furor in France by referring to the killings of millions of Jews and other minorities in Nazi extermination camps as a mere “detail of history.”

A skillful, emotive speaker, Le Pen has recently been able to exploit widespread French fears about the increasing immigrant population in France to build the strength of his National Front political party. Recent polls have shown the party achieving 17% support among the French despite its thinly veiled anti-Semitic and racist elements.

Among Le Pen’s most ardent supporters in France are “skinhead” and neo-Nazi movements. He also has a strong following among the fundamentalist Roman Catholic and royalist strains of French politics.

Although billed by organizers as a “silent procession” to demonstrate against racism and anti-Semitism in France, the procession was frequently interrupted by chants against Le Pen. Many in the crowd wore armbands stating “Le Pen = Hatred.” Young militants in Communist Party youth organizations shouted for Le Pen’s banishment from the French press.

“Le Pen, Out of the Media!” was one of the slogans. “Shut Up the Racists. Shut Up the Fascists,” was another slogan printed on a Communist Workers’ Party banner.

In fact, two major French magazines, L’Express and Le Nouvel Observateur, boycotted a press conference called by Le Pen on Monday afternoon at the same time as the demonstration.

All six French television networks carried live coverage of the procession. Then, in an unprecedented decision, all the networks--two public and four private--interrupted regular programming and simultaneously aired the 1955 documentary “Night and Fog” by director Alain Resnais. The film depicts the horrors of Nazi death camps.

French police officials said Le Pen, who appeared only briefly at the press conference, has been provided with police bodyguards and greatly added security to protect him from physical attack.

The mayor in the French city of Angouleme became the latest in a series of officials to ban public meetings at which Le Pen is scheduled to speak. Le Pen was slated to speak in the city June 21.

In remarks preceding the march, Prime Minister Rocard vowed to “make it clear, to the eyes of foreigners . . . that France in its unanimity is neither racist nor anti-Semitic.”

At the conclusion of the massive demonstration, the Grand Rabbi of France, Joseph Sitruk, declared it a great success.

“Thank you to the people of France--those of the true France who never cease to fight for the rights of men,” Sitruk said.