According to a local Jewish group, antisemitic incidents in France are still at a “historic” level.

CRIF say France saw almost 1,600 antisemitic acts in 2024, among them multiple synagogue arsons, rape of 12-year-old girl; figure is down from 2023, but higher than previous years

France saw nearly 1,600 antisemitic acts in 2024, the country’s main Jewish organization said on Wednesday. The figure marked a slight dip compared to the year before, but still a level unseen in recent years until Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack in Israel sparked war in the Middle East and a surge of antisemitism worldwide.

The figure of 1,570 incidents marked a 6 percent fall from the 1,676 recorded in 2023 but well above the numbers in the past decade or so.

By comparison, 436 antisemitic acts were recorded in 2022 and since 2012 they have fluctuated between 311 and 851 per year.

“For the second consecutive year, we are facing a historic number of antisemitic acts,” said the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), an umbrella body of French Jewish groups, in a report based on figures from the Jewish community and the ministry of the interior.

The CRIF has emphasized that antisemitic incidents surged in France in 2023 following the Hamas attack, when terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. The attack sparked an ongoing war between Israel and the terror group in the Gaza Strip, where fighting stopped on Sunday amid a hostage-ceasefire deal.

The figures only cover acts that have been the subject of a complaint, and therefore “this does not cover the entire phenomenon of antisemitism in France,” CRIF president Yonathan Arfi told AFP.

“Unfortunately, a large part of the phenomenon does not give rise to complaints, particularly in schools,” he added.

The CRIF singled out attacks including the attempted arson on the synagogue in the town of La Grande-Motte in August, the fire at the synagogue in the city of Rouen in May and the gang-rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl by three teenagers hurling antisemitic remarks in mid-June in Courbevoie outside Paris.

France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish community and the third-largest in the world after Israel and the United States.