The name Charles Maurras evokes the darkest currents of the French past: strident nationalism and obsessive anti-Semitism. This, after all, was a man who advocated denying Jews citizenship because — to him — they could never be anything but traitors. For his wartime activities, which French authorities saw as “complicity with the enemy,” Maurras was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1945. For historians, Maurras is the incarnation of France’s homegrown anti-Semitism, a fixture of public discourse throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Violent anti-Semitic incidents are also common in modern France, mostly in North African and West African immigrant communities.

Source: Washington Post January 28, 2018 14:00 UTC