Dominique de Villepin smashes France’s Top Jewish Lobby Organization

Dominique de Villepin smashes the CRIF: “You are not a state institution! You stifle freedom of expression and divide the country.”

Dominique de Villepin fiercely criticized the CRIF on RMC on July 4, 2025, denouncing its arrogance and anti-republican influence after Yonathan Arfi’s attacks at the CRIF dinner. He accused the association of behaving like a state within the state, threatening secularism and national cohesion.

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On July 3, 2025, at the chic Carrousel du Louvre, the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF) rolled out the red carpet for its 39th annual dinner, an event where the political Tout-Paris flock to pledge allegiance. Well, almost.

For Dominique de Villepin didn’t need to set foot on the carpet to shake the gilt. A guest on RMC’s “Grandes Gueules” (Big Mouths) on Friday July 4, 2025 (see video at the bottom of this article), the former Prime Minister unleashed a retort that will go down in history, aimed directly at CRIF President Yonathan Arfi:

“The CRIF should remember that it is neither a state institution nor an Israeli foreign ministry. In France, we still have the right to criticize a state, even Israel, without being accused of anti-Semitism. The real danger is this systematic amalgam you make between Jew and Israeli, between political criticism and racial hatred. You think you’re defending a community? In reality, you’re endangering it. You stifle freedom of expression. You’re dividing the country. France is not an extension of the Likud. And you are not the arbiter of what can be said or thought here.“

Boom. A summary that slams like an uppercut, and highlights the arrogance of an organization that, under the guise of representing the French Jewish community, behaves like a state within a state.

A CRIF that dreams of being the censor of the Republic

Let’s continue. At this dinner, Yonathan Arfi, in a burst of smugness, saw fit to call de Villepin “the Mélenchon of the upper classes”. A petty attack, launched in front of an audience of ministers and elected representatives who didn’t flinch – no doubt accustomed to bowing down to this kind of sermon. But de Villepin didn’t let it go. On RMC, with his usual verve, he dismantled the CRIF’s arrogance.

Let’s be serious: who is the CRIF, that it can hand out good and bad points to leading political figures? An association, let’s not forget, which claims to speak on behalf of the French Jewish community – barely one-sixth of this community, itself 1% of the French population. And yet, every year, it’s the same circus: politicians from both left and right jostle for a seat at the CRIF table, as if their careers depended on it. Pathetic.

What de Villepin pointed to was the confusion skilfully orchestrated by the CRIF between Israeli politics, the State of Israel and the French Jewish community. It’s a toxic equation, which feeds amalgam and weakens the fight against anti-Semitism. “When you chair an institution like the CRIF, you have a duty to respect republican principles”, he insisted. And rightly so. By setting itself up as the self-proclaimed guardian of the truth, the CRIF runs the risk of (ER: ‘runs the risk of’? It already has.) dividing, stigmatizing and silencing those who dare to criticize Netanyahu’s policies without calling into question the existence of Israel or the pain of the Jewish community in the face of October 7. This posture is anything but republican. It’s even a danger to national cohesion.

Variable-geometry secularism: where are the Catholics?

And in the meantime, what do we see? A Republic that brandishes secularism like a banner when it comes to pointing the finger at Muslims or lecturing Catholics, but turns a blind eye when the CRIF plays petty boss. Where’s the consistency? Catholics, who are in the majority in France, are regularly called to order in the name of secularism – a concept that some suspect is merely a front for Freemasonry and its agenda. The CRIF, on the other hand, can summon ministers and lecture former prime ministers without anyone batting an eyelid. A double standard. And then they wonder why the social divide is widening.

A CRIF that falsifies and harasses

Worse still, de Villepin recalled a sordid episode: the false accusations made against him by Arfi on BFM, where he supposedly referred to “Jewish financial domination”. Arfi (or Villepin?) never made these remarks, for which Arcom served formal notice on the channel, while the journalists’ ethics council condemned the manipulation. But Arfi has never apologized. On the contrary, he persists, launching what de Villepin describes as a “manhunt” against those who dare to think differently. The result? The former minister, his family and his children receive daily death threats. This is where the arrogance of the CRIF leads: to dangerous polarization, to a climate of fear, and to a Republic on the rocks.

For a free French diplomacy

Beyond this exchange of weapons, de Villepin called for French diplomacy to regain its independence and balance, far from the injunctions of the CRIF or Atlanticist alignments. “France must be a shield for all its citizens”, he insisted, recalling the urgent need to defend French hostages in Iran or prisoners in Algeria. But to do this, we must stop bowing to pressure, whether from the CRIF or elsewhere. France, he concluded, must once again become a voice of nuance, justice and republican humanism. A message which, we hope, will resonate beyond the platforms of RMC.

The CRIF must come down to earth

The CRIF may dream of being the kingmaker, the arbiter of republican conscience, but it is still just another association. Its legitimacy is no greater than that granted by its members – a tiny fraction of the French population. So let it stop taking itself for the navel of the Republic. And let the politicians, for once, have the courage to remind him that, in France, sovereignty belongs to the people, not to a handful of dinner guests.

Source

Featured image source, de Villepin: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-former-french-minister-dominique-de-villepin-denounces-greatest-historic-scandal

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