“From Ilan Halimi to Sara Halimi your responses can provide an element of hope...Your silence will be regarded, at best, as indifference.”

Paris, 6 April 2017

In a letter to each of the 11 French Presidential candidates participating in the 23 April first-round elections, Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, protested "yesterday's horrific act in the 11th district of Paris – the murder of a 60 year old Jewess, Sara Halimi, reportedly, by an Islamist who threw her from her apartment window, screaming 'Allahu Akbar'.”

Samuels continued “what began in 2006 with the hostage-murder of Ilan Halimi, to the Toulouse Jewish school, the Hyperkasher massacre and countless other assaults, have made France the most dangerous country for Jewish life. The state of emergency against terrorism will be lifted after the Presidential elections. Already, military security is being removed from sensitive Jewish targets.”

The letter polled each candidate: 

"1. Will you, as President, reinstate the full military presence at Jewish institutions? Will you end the culture of apology that treats Islamist perpetrators as psychiatric cases rather than hate-crime terrorists?

2. Despite the warnings of the Paris municipality, the police, last week, permitted a 'BDS' (Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions) demonstration under the slogan: ‘Separate CRIF (the Representative Council of French Jews) from the State’ - a euphemism for ‘Expel the Jews from France’.

Mr./Madam Candidate, will your Presidency take measures to penalize the demonization and delegitimization of Israel as a poison that incites to antisemitic violence against the Jewish community of France?

3. Mr./Madam Candidate, will your Presidency lead a shift in foreign policy against the disproportionate voting against Israel in international organizations – especially the resolutions that deny Jewish and Christian heritage in UNESCO and constant attacks on Israel at the United Nations Human Rights Council?  

These are also contributory factors to antisemitism as acknowledged by the definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, of which France is a member".

"Mr./Madam Candidate, from Ilan Halimi to Sara Halimi, your responses can provide an element of hope...Your silence will be regarded, at best, as indifference.”, concluded Samuels.