A pro-Hamas protester with a sign comparing the Auschwitz extermination camp with the current war in Gaza at a demonstration in Paris. Photo: Reuters/Henrique Campos

More than 600 prominent personalities in French politics and culture have signed an open letter calling on candidates in the forthcoming elections to the European parliament to decisively reject antisemitism.

The letter, published in the leading news outlet Le Monde on Thursday, attracted the signatures of three former prime ministers — Elisabeth Borne, Bernard Cazeneuve, and Manuel Valls.

Organized by “Nous Vivrons” (“We Live”), a collective devoted to combating antisemitism, the letter observed that the June 6-9 elections for the 750 seats in the European parliament amounted to a major test for democracy that went far beyond the “fate of the Jews.”

“We ask for nothing more than others, but nothing less either,” the letter stated. “Just a non-negotiable common minimum. Against antisemitism in all its forms. Against hatred. Against xenophobia.”

The letter went on to declare: “We refuse to pay the heaviest price of a fractured society in search of a common enemy to unite against.”

Other signatories to the letter included the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg, the writer Yvan Attal, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi, and the Chief Rabbi of France, Haim Korsia.

Part of the impetus for the letter was provided by a demonstration in Paris on March 8 to mark International Women’s Day. Jewish women who took to the streets demanding the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since the terrorist organization’s pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7 were confronted by around 300 pro-Hamas demonstrators chanting “Palestine will win.” Insults were exchanged along with shoving and jostling before police intervened to restore order.

The Jewish women “wanted to carry the voice of Israeli women, they were asked why they did not talk about Palestinian women,” the letter stated, before asking: “Why should Jews be the carriers of a universalist feminism that the spokespeople of the cause have themselves given up?”

Hatred of Jews has exploded in France in the wake of the Hamas atrocities. Antisemitic outrages rose by over 1,000 percent in the final three months of 2023 compared with the previous year, with over 1,200 incidents reported.

In an address to the Jewish community earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron pledged his absolute commitment to countering antisemitism.

“Every time the slightest trace of antisemitism reappears, we will be as uncompromising as we have always been,” Macron emphasized.