The minister was invited to speak on Wednesday at the Rally for Justice and Truth organized in Paris by Elnet in response to the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Manuel Valls was invited to speak on Wednesday at the Rally for Justice and Truth organized in Paris by Elnet in response to France’s recognition of a Palestinian state. The minister delivered a vibrant speech of rare firmness in the face of the anti-Semitic excesses plaguing France, including within its political class.
“Faced with this wave of hatred, our response must be absolutely clear. No ‘yes, but’, no excuses, no relativism: anti-Jewish hatred is the absolute enemy of everything we, the French people, embody!” declared the former Prime Minister.
He also denounced the idea that the current opposition to the recognition of a Palestinian state is simply a diplomatic controversy. “It’s something much deeper, damn it! And those who don’t understand that are missing the point, missing the history, missing what our country is and its relationship with Judaism!”
Recalling the tragic toll of the October 7 attacks, Manuel Valls launched an appeal against forgetting and denying the crimes: “We must always return to October 7 and its significance. That morning, our certainties and our hopes collapsed, with the greatest massacre committed against the Jews since the Holocaust. 1,200 innocent people massacred, entire families exterminated, elderly people martyred, women raped, children murdered; among these victims, 251 people torn from their loved ones, and taken hostage in the tunnels of Gaza. And let us never forget that there were 51 French citizens among the victims,” he said.
