Marine Le Pen, front-runner candidate of the extreme right National Front party in the upcoming presidential elections in France continues to gain popularity, recent polls show.

Some analysts even say she is on course to be the next President of France.

In a recent interview to Israel’s Channel 2 news, she said French Jews should be banned from wearing a kippah as part of “the struggle against radical Islam.” Jews must give up certain practices of worship in the public space, she said.

Later, she declared that if elected president she wouldn’t allow French citizens to maintain their citizenship in any country that is not part of the European Union. It enforced, this would require French Israelis to choose between the two countries. If a Franco-Israeli renounces French citizenship, he or she will be able to continue living in France as a foreigner with a residence permit.

Many Jews are concerned by Marine Le Pen’s latest statements. But not all of them…

In an interview with European Jewish Press (EJP), Michel Thooris, a French-Jewish police inspector currently on leave from government service because he serves as a municipal councilor elected on a National Front (FN) list in southern France, argues that ‘’it is impossible to make an exceptional law targeting only the Muslims of France."

Marine Le Pen also wants to ban religious food differences in public schools, which means that Jewish kids would not be able to eat kosher food anymore.

"The dispute concerns the mode of slaughter of the animal considered by some people as causing suffering to the animal. Also the meat itself is criticized because of lack of traceability of the animal due to the lack of labeling,’’ said Thooris, who founded last year the Union of French Jewish Patriots (UPJP), a fringe group linked to the National Front.

"As a member of UPJP, I regret that French Jews are obliged to limit their cultural and religious life in the public space. Wearing the kippah and the burqa have nothing in common,’’ he told EJP.

‘’People who wear the burqa in France want to defy the Republic by this fundamentalist attire. The Islamists want to visually occupy the public space with a spirit of proselytism and conquest of France. This is absolutely not the case of a Jew wearing a kippah. Jews are not proselytes and do not have the will to impose Judaism on others.’’

‘’With regard to dual citizenship, while an adjustment would be made for EU and Russian citizens, the UPFJ hopes that the same derogation will be granted to Jews in Israel, a country which is at the heart of Judeo-Christian civilization and spearhead of the West in the Middle East,’’ Thooris noted.

About kashrut, the Jewish religious dietary laws, the UPFJ considers that the mode of slaughter is the most ethic and the most respectful for the animal. ‘’However, we are also in favor of labeling animals for a better traceability of meat," says.

Asked about French Jews’ ambivalence about Marine Le Pen, Thooris responded: ‘’French Jews are largely politically right-wing. They were very disappointed by (former President) Nicolas Sarkozy who recognized Palestine at UNESCO. After five years of Francois Hollande, France goes very badly because of terrorism.

Many left-wing and far-left politicians are very hostile to the Jews. Benoît Hamon, the Socialist presidential candidate, has been described as the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamo-Leftist even by some of his Socialist friends. Faced with the insecurity and the rise of radical Islamism, Jews are considering voting Marine Le Pen because she is the only one to propose a plan to fight fundamentalists. French Jews, who were the first victims of the rise of insecurity and terrorism, want also this change. Marine Le Pen embodies a new person in politics who can provide solutions to the new contemporary threats."

Is it wrong to consider the National Front as an anti-Semitic party?

Michel Thooris: " There are anti-Semites in the National Front as in all political parties. However, Marine Le Pen has already excluded a lot of anti-Semites from the party, although there are probably still remaining. However, the policy proposed by the National Front is neither anti-Jewish nor pro-Jewish. There is no discriminatory measure against the French Jews in the project of Marine Le Pen. The political project of the the National Front is Euroskeptic (against the European Union), focused on economic and social protectionism which gives priority to the French people and aims to stop immigration. The National Front has never supported a boycott of products from Israeli settlements unlike many left-wing and extreme left-wing French politicians, including Communists. Anti-Semitism today in France comes exclusively from the Left, the extreme Left and Muslim fundamentalists.’

CRIF, the representative umbrella group of Jewish institutions in France, this week recalled the opposition of all the Jewish organisations in France to any contact with the National Front.

For Francis Kalifat, president of CRIF, ‘’the sanitary cordon around the National Front is a Republican imperative to which the Jews are attached because they know that by protecting the Republic they protect the French Jews.’’