In a post published on his Facebook account, the French Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe (photo), reveals that in the first nine months of 2018, there was a 69% increase in the number of anti-Semetic acts.

To be correctly interpreted, we should compare this figure to the rise in other discriminatory acts. But we don’t have this. Be that as it may, the figure we have testifies that there has been a profound and rapid degradation in France’s social fabric.

The decision to publish this figure on 9 November 2018 draws a neat distinction between French Prime Minister and the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron. Two days earlier, Macron had announced a national homage to the sergeants of the First World War, Philippe Pétain included. Yet Phillipe Petain’s title had been taken away from him the day after the Second World War.

Petain’s military highlights: he had struck an alliance, collaborating with the Nazis; he then went on to “a-patriate” French naturalized Jews. He had them delivered up to the Reich who then packed them off to concentration camps where Nazis were putting into practice the Final Solution.