“We expect immediate and appropriate action by your Ministry to bring these elements to justice, before they infect further military ranks with their hatred and probable incitement to violence against Jews and other targets.”

Paris, 17 March 2021

In a letter to Florence Parly, Minister of the French Armed Services, Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed “shock at a Mediapart report – just released – of neo-Nazi elements in the French Armed Forces.”

The letter noted that “Mediapart claims the presence of ‘over fifty new devotees of the Third Reich’... illustrated by the horrific photos below, apparently both in barracks on French soil and on mission overseas.”

(source: Mediapart website and Twitter)

The Centre was amazed at Mediapart’s revelation that “this is not the first case, but recurrent.”

“Madam Minister, our Centre expects immediate and appropriate action by your Ministry to bring these elements to justice, before they infect further military ranks with their hatred and probable incitement to violence against Jews and other targets,” concluded Samuels.

* * *

Please contact us if you are a witness or victim of antisemitism or other forms of discrimination on social media.

“Hate is a boomerang, which comes back for everyone and spares no one, neither the weak nor the powerful.”
Simon Wiesenthal, 1908-2005 (quote from his book “Justice Not Vengeance”)