“To resolve the crisis in the fifth Republic – advises the antifascist partisan – it is necessary to establish the fact that citizens’ individual rights come first and form the basis of the communities”. Without a secular state – argues Klein, who in 2002 published a book entitled The manifesto of a free Jew – there is no religious freedom or multiculturalism. He tells us that there are many contacts and the collaboration between the Jewish and Muslim comunities on the basis of these principles is fruitful.

What are the aspects of the ongoing political debate which worry you the most?

I might be saying something banal but it is the first time we have a political debate based on the candidates as physical people and not on their programmes. Look at Ségolène Royal, whom I follow with affection. The socialist candidate is playing on the fact she is not a man. Her message can be reduced to this: I am a woman, therefore blessed with a different sensitivity, able to renew politics. Nicolas Sarkozy presents himself as if he had been born to be president of the Republic. He does not ask his electors to vote for him for his programme, but for his natural charisma. Then there is François Bayrou who wants to be appreciated for his alleged political virginity, for never having had a status of great importance. So, does he think this is a strength?

Therefore, little clarity on the programmes.

Yes. Personally, I have not fully understood what the programme of these candidates is. And I do not think that the French have understood it either. As I was saying, we are facing an identification which is almost entirely personal charisma and political representation. As an extremely negative consequence: seeing as nobody speaks of concrete things, just to start, the next president will receive a blank mandate.

You have expressed your approval of Ségolène Royal. What are the chances she will be elected?

I like the way Royal has been able to evolve during these months of the electoral campaign. I like her, even though people near me who have known her speak badly of her. She has matured a lot and seems to me to be worthy of the position she is aspiring to. This said, however, I would like to know who she would choose to be her prime minister. And which themes the government would consider a priority to act on.

In recent years the French Jewish community has notably moved to the right. According to some surveys there will be almost complete support for the candidate Ump. Is it the fault of the uncritical arabophile left?

I do not think much of the surveys you refer to. I am convinced that when they go to vote, French Jewish people behave in exactly the same way as other citizens. These follow their instinct and own immediate interests, rather than whether they belong to one community or another. Some time ago, my barber told me that his wife, insulted by an Arab while queuing at the polling station, entered in the cabin and voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen. Again, Jewish people are citizens like everyone else, with the same needs and same fears. I do see why they would vote in accordance to a community spirit. Even more so seeing how in France there is no hostility regards Israel. Everyone, from Sarkozy to Royal, is working towards a rapid pacification in the Middle Orient, through the end of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

So you deny that Sarkozy is pro-American. And that in foreign political affairs he could break with the proud Gaullist independentalism?

Sarkozy is an intelligent man. A man who knows how to differentiate between an electoral campaign and managing power. Once elected president he will only follow the guidelines which France has followed for decades now.

The conflicts between Palestinians and Israelis, the crisis afflicting the Islamic world, have had strong repercussions in France’s internal politics. The movements in the banlieues and the prosecution of Israelis in a new wave of anti-Semitism in France are all too recent. Are we contributing towards a crisis in the Republic?

Today communitarianism is the biggest risk to our democracy. In fact, there is nothing as dangerous as considering individuals as people belonging to one community or another, even more dangerous than citizens who are considered identical in the eyes of the law. First of all because it would represent a deviation from the principle of equality; secondly because it would demean the civil pact on which the state was founded and demean the peaceful coexistence of the people. In the history of the 20th century, France has seen from close-up the consequences of communitarianism. With the Dreyfus affair, for example, and then with Vichy. Do you think it is a coincidence that during the war, at a moment in which hunger and destruction were at their worst, the puppet regime of Philippe Pétain first of all dealt with the deportation of the Jews? It was the day of reckoning, the epilogue of a season in which the state had become the battleground between communities.

In your opinion is equalitarianism of the French Republic still valid?

Of course. Even if the system is currently in crisis, this does not mean that the principles on which it was founded are wrong. On the contrary, the only way to resolve the crisis is to fight against communitarianism to establish that citizens’ individual rights of the citizens come first and form the basis of the communities. Without a secular state there is no religious freedom. The reason is very simple: before being Jewish, I am a person like everyone else, my needs as a human come before my needs as a believer. And, so that my faith is authentic, it must be chosen and carried out in complete freedom, a condition which is only possible in a democratic regime.

Does the French Islamic community share your convictions?

The community of French Muslims share entirely these principles. They share the belief that a secular state is the only principle which can allow peaceful coexistence of everyone in the same society and in the same institutions. On the basis of these values there is, in fact, frequent cooperation between Crif and the most important representatives of French Islam.

Do you deny, therefore, the existence of a wave of anti-Semitism in France, as Israel has declared more than once?

It is true that there are periods of racism which hit Jews for various reasons , but we cannot speak of real anti-Semitism. In my opinion, we can speak of anti-Semitism only when the civil rights of Jewish people and their community are threatened. This is not happening. This does not take away from the fact that in our country, as in every other, there is a category of people who express their own unrest, by insulting and attacking others. It is a case of ordinary racism, which affects Jewish people, but also homosexuals or immigrants. I must insist that in the past I have been greatly criticised for this, but the nonchalance used with the word “anti-Semite” seems to me regrettable and dangerous. On the one hand because it rouses false alarms and no longer lets you recognise real anti-Semitism. Also because the inappropriate use of this word produces a banalisation of the Shoah which is, per se, extremely dangerous.

Translation by Sonia Ter Hovanessian