French take up fight against anti-Semitism

Actor Gerard Depardieu is one of the mainfesto’s signatories. Photo: Getty Images

Rachel Alexander in Paris

More than 300 French dignitaries and stars, including former president Nicolas Sarkozy, have signed a manifesto denouncing a "new anti-Semitism" marked by "Islamist radicalisation" after a series of murders of Jews.

The country's half-million-plus Jewish community is the largest in Europe but has been hit by a wave of emigration to Israel in the past two decades, partly due to the emergence of virulent anti-Semitism in predominantly immigrant neighbourhoods.