James Morrow: France gets right what Labor gets wrong in fight against Jew-hatred

More than 100,000 people have marched in Paris against anti-Semitism. Meanwhile in Australia, Labor can’t get its stories straight, writes James Morrow.

France, it must be said, has gotten a bad rap.

In a world where people generally can’t remember what they had for dinner last night, the fall of Paris just a few weeks after Nazi Germany stormed across the border into France has given the country an unfair reputation.

Without being flippant about it, this was not helped by Homer Simpsons’ description of the French as a bunch of, as he put it, “cheese eating surrender monkeys.”

Yet, in the wake of the October 7 massacres, and the worldwide displays of anti-Semitism — displays that have often tipped over into pro-Hamas cheerleading — the French, including many of their senior politicians have stood up.

Between 100,000 and 200,000 French marched in Paris against anti-Semitism and they were joined by senior politicians across the political spectrum.

French senate president Gerard Larcher, president of the French National Assembly Yael Braun-Pivet, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy and France's former president Francois Hollande among the crowd singing the French national anthem as they stand behind a banner which reads as For The Republic, Against anti-Semitism during a march in Paris on November 12. Picture: AFP

“Our order of the day today is … the total fight against anti-Semitism, which is the opposite of the values of the Republic,” Gérard Larcher, the French senate speaker and a co-organiser of the largely peaceful demonstration, said.

This is an extraordinary thing but perhaps not surprising.

Protesters holding placards which read Against All Religious Racisms, Against anti-Semitism, Against Racism and Political Recuperation in a march against anti-Semitism in Paris on November 12. Picture: AFP

And it stands in contrast to Australia, and particularly the ALP, which has been all over the shop on the issue.

What makes France’s stance all the more poignant is its history.

France has a brutal understanding of anti-Semitism from its time under Nazi occupation.

More recently, France has suffered Islamic terror attacks that, in retrospect, seemed to pre-figure the October 7 massacres.

These include what happened during the horror years of 2015-16 and the Bataclan theatre attacks, the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and the murder of 86 people attending Bastille Day celebrations Nice at the hands of a Tunisian who ploughed a 19 tonne cargo truck through the crowd.

A woman looks at floral tributes left outside the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in Paris for victims of the 2015 massacre at the weekly satirical paper which left 12 dead. Picture: AFP

They get the threat.

At the same time, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has mouthed his support for Israel, he has all too often fallen into the trap of both-sidesism.

As Peter Dutton said in parliament Wednesday, “The words have been qualified, the message divided.”

Yes, of course a Palestinian child killed in an IDF air strike on Hamas is a terrible thing, as is the murder of a Jewish child by Hamas.

But if we cannot make a moral distinction between the side that tries to avoid killing children in an attempt to fight evil, and a side that perpetuates evil (there really is no other word for the events of October 7) by deliberately killing children, we are lost.