Macron says anti-Zionism the reinvention of anti-Semitism

French president Emmanuel Macron condemns anti-Zionism as a new form of anti-Semitism, in what observers says is an unprecedented statement from the leader of France in support of the Jewish state.

“We will never surrender to the messages of hate; we will not surrender to anti-Zionism because it is a reinvention of anti-Semitism,” Macron says at an event in Paris attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

During a lengthy and introspective speech marking the 75th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv roundup, a mass arrest of over 13,000 French Jews in July 1942 that was part of the Nazi effort to eradicate France’s Jews, Macron forcefully denounces Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.

Like several of his predecessors, he accepts France’s responsibility for the deportations, admitting that the Vichy regime actively organized them.

Netanyahu is set to meet Macron at the Elysee palace later this afternoon for the two leaders’ first formal meeting.

— Raphael Ahren