\n<\/p>\n
French lawmakers are on April 16 set to vote on a government-backed draft law<\/a>\u00a0based on the idea that rising anti-Semitism<\/a> in the country with Europe\u2019s largest Jewish population is grounded in an \u201cobsessive\u201d hatred of Israel<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The legislation has been drafted and redrafted since it was first introduced to the National Assembly at the end of 2024. Earlier drafts would have outlawed any comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany as “trivialising” the Holocaust and banned public speech calling for the ill-defined “denial” of a state’s existence.<\/p>\n If passed, the law in its current form will broaden the definition of \u201capology for terrorism\u201d \u2013 defending or justifying terrorist acts,\u00a0considered an offence<\/a>\u00a0in France \u2013 to include speech that \u201cimplicitly\u201d justifies or downplays acts deemed terrorist. The law would also make it illegal to call for the \u201cdestruction\u201d of any country recognised by France<\/a>, punishable by five years in prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n The draft law\u2019s preamble<\/a>\u00a0leaves little doubt which country the authors have in mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cToday, anti-Jewish hatred in our country is fuelled by an obsessive hatred of Israel, whose very existence is regularly delegitimised and criminalised,\u201d it reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis hatred of the State of Israel is now inseparable from hatred of\u00a0Jews<\/a>,\u201d the law says.\u00a0<\/p>\n UN’s Albanese slams ‘shameful and defamatory’ anti-Semitism accusations against her<\/p>\n