France must stand by Israel not only now, right after the murderous attack by Hamas, but also in the coming days, when a ground operation starts, as an international communication battle is surely set to be launched against Israel, former French prime minister Manuel Valls told The Jerusalem Post this week.
France and the whole free world should feel they are under attack, he said. Valls served as interior minister when the deadly terrorist attack against the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse was carried out and as prime minister when the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, Hyper-Cacher, and the Bataclan concert hall were perpetrated. Valls arrived in Israel on Sunday evening for a four-day visit, heading a delegation of 10 members of the French parliament. The visit was organized by the Paris-based ELNET organization. Te delegation included representatives of the ruling Renaissance Party of President Emmanuel Macron, its coalition partner Horizon Party, and the Republican French right-wing party. No left-wing or far-left parliamentarians joined the trip to Israel.Solidarity with the kidnapped
“We have several goals in coming here,” Valls said. “The first, to express our solidarity with Israel, to make it clear that we stand by Israel and its people after this unprecedented deadly attack by Hamas. Israel, a democracy, has been attacked. It has now the right, even the obligation, to defend itself and its citizens.”
The third goal of the trip is perhaps the most important, Valls said.
“Now that we have spoken to people who lost their loved ones, people whose relatives have been kidnapped and taken to Gaza, people who lost their homes, our mission is to testify, to tell things as they are back home,” he said. “Since coming here, I keep giving interviews to the French media, explaining to them what is at stake here, not only for Israel, but also to France and for all of Europe.” The firm stance taken by Valls against terrorism and the rise in antisemitism in 2015 has positioned him as champion of these causes.Reminders of attacks back home in France
Many members of the French Jewish community told the Post this past week that what happened in the South of Israel reminded them of the terrorist attacks in France, especially the one at the Bataclan rock concert.
“For me, as well, the attack by Hamas took me right back to those days,” Valls said. “We met a young man currently hospitalized in Tel Aviv. He was injured when escaping the horrible attack against the rave party in Re’im. We spoke with a father whose daughter is missing. He told me, ‘She just wanted to dance.’ Exactly the same as the people who went to the Bataclan. They only wanted to listen to music, to dance, and to live. This brings us, French leaders and citizens, closer to Israel. We share the same fears, the same pain.” “This is not just a war declared by Hamas against Israel,” he said. “It is a battle between the democratic world and totalitarian radical Islam, the jihadism. Look at what happened in the French city of Arras the other day [a teacher was stabbed to death by a radicalized youngster]. Think of the killing of Samuel Paty exactly three years ago, the attack last Tuesday in Brussels, where two Swedish nationals were murdered. This battle between democracy and jihadism is already here in Europe.” French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed his full support for Israel and its right of self-defense. The French government has taken extra measures to protect Jewish schools and institutions. Macron is set to arrive in Israel for a solidarity visit in the coming days. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna came to Israel on Sunday. Nevertheless, French far-left leaders have blamed the French Jewish community for allegedly aligning itself with the far Right. “I have been saying that for years, there are two Lefts in France,” Valls said. “We have the socialists, and then we have the extreme Left… the French extreme Left did not even qualify Hamas as terrorists. They were using the word resistance, which is the term we use in Europe for those who fought against the Nazis. These people demonstrated in 2014, calling, ‘Death to the Jews,’ and now the extreme Left has 20% of the seats in our national assembly. This is a dangerous situation.”“The French government is fighting that, but it’s a battle that we must carry out within our society, within our schools, as we hear more and more anti-Zionism expressions,” he said. “This is antisemitism. We must say that loud and clear. The radical Islam forces are at work for several years now in the poor neighborhoods, in local associations. There is a real reason to be worried.”
Valls said wherever he went in Israel, he felt the trauma that all Israelis will now carry on for years to come. “There is the trauma, and there is the [military/intelligence] failure,” he said. “There will clearly be inquiry commissions, but that’s not for now. We visited kibbutzim that were founded by survivors of the Holocaust. With the terror attack of Hamas, these people were thrown back to the dark period of the war. “This is what I will tell when I come back to France. I will tell [them] that in the aftermath of the October 7 attack, Israeli soldiers found documents left by the terrorists, demonstrating that all these atrocities were meticulously planned ahead,” Valls said.
