Six months later Hamas attack, French public opinion maintains an attitude of support towards Israel. According to the survey carried out by Ifop for the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Crif), that La Tribune Sunday published exclusively, 56% of French people consider that the Israeli government’s objective of eliminating Hamas from Gaza is justified. A goal understood by all categories of the population.
Certainly, the polling institute has recorded a decline since October, when 65% of those questioned shared this opinion, around twenty days after the massacre. The erosion can be explained by geographical distance, the intensification of strikes in Gaza and the deaths of civilians, as well as the virulence of public debates. But opinion has not changed. Only 12% believe that responsibility for the current tragedies in the Palestinian strip of land lies with the Jewish state alone, compared to 29% for the Islamist organization and 59% for the two belligerents.
“ The French remain very marked by October 7, they consider that these were terrorist acts. Only one minority, particularly among LFI sympathizers or those under 25, see acts of resistance. This day echoes the 2015 attacks in France. The murders perpetrated at the rave party evoke an open-air Bataclan, it is a reactivated trauma. For people, the Hamas is Daesh »analyzes Frédéric Dabi, director at Ifop.
71% of respondents fear attacks
A sign of this empathy, many French people (71%) fear that our country will be the target of similar attacks. And two out of three people believe that the release of the hostages must be a prerequisite for any ceasefire. On this last point, 44% observe, in passing, that the fate of the three French people still detained by the terrorists occupies less public discourse than that of other hostages in the past. At the same time, the share of opinion unfavorable to pro-Palestinian support demonstrations reached its highest level (73%). A disagreement on the grounds that “ anti-Republican or even anti-Semitic remarks were made during some of these gatherings ».
Yonathan Arfi, the president of Crif, displays relative relief. “ There is a silent, understanding and caring majority. The general attitude differs from the aggressiveness observed on social networks, he rejoices. However, the Jewish community still suffers from hostile comments from a very vocal minority which can make it feel isolated. There is excessive noise around ideas that are far from being shared. »
In fact, a large proportion of public opinion judges that the wave of anti-Semitic acts observed since October is an attack on the unity of the nation. For 72% of respondents, this is “ a serious threat for French people of the Jewish faith but also for society as a whole ». For Yonathan Arfi, “ the fight against anti-Semitism is clearly seen as a non-negotiable part of the common framework ».
Methodology
The survey was conducted among a sample of 1,207 people, representative of the French population aged 18 and over. The representativeness of the sample was ensured by the quota method (sex, age, profession of the person interviewed) after stratification by region and category of agglomeration. The interviews were carried out by self-administered online questionnaire from April 2 to 3, 2024.
