The ghost of antisemitism has returned to haunt France, prompting criminal action against a website that claimed Jews control the country and the prosecution of a teacher who allegedly suggested that President Macron was part of a Jewish plot.
The government ordered the crackdown after incidents that showed how much the pandemic has fuelled a return of the old ugly currents that have stained French history.
On Wednesday a monument in Brittany to Simone Veil, the feminist, former minister and Holocaust survivor, was daubed with swastikas.
Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, sent in prosecutors after a site called IlsSontPartout.com [They Are Everywhere] laid out the names and profiles of Jewish politicians, media owners, financiers and arts figures who supposedly connive to control the country. The
