Antisemitism and the French Left: Five (or Maybe Six) Types in a Long-Term Perspective

Abstract

A significant amount of literature exists on the history of socialism in France, from its origins in the nineteenth century until today. During this period, a large number of Jews became involved with the socialist movement, intended in the broader sense of the term. The first country in the world to emancipate Jewish people in 1791, France was emulated by many other European countries in the nineteenth century. Despite this, antisemitism had a new resurgence in Germany, Austria, France and Russia from the 1880s. However, France was a pioneer in matters of the emancipation of the Jews, and as a consequence, many of them were grateful and identified with the values of progress and universalism defended by the Second Republic and, even more so, by the Third. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that out of 39 million people, in France there were only 80,000 Jews, two thousandths of the population, making the French Jewish community one of the smallest in the big European countries of the 1880s.