Europe1.fr with AFP/Photo credits: FIORA GARENZI / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 11:36 a.m., April 3, 2024

For several months, Act Up-Paris has been torn apart over the conflict in the Middle East: activists want to publicly support the Palestinians, while other members, Jews, no longer feel welcome and denounce “anti-Semitic comments”. 

For several months, Act Up-Paris has been torn apart over the conflict in the Middle East: activists want to publicly support the Palestinians, while other members, Jews, no longer feel welcome and denounce “anti-Semitic comments”. 

If this crisis is far from being the first in the historic organization fighting against AIDS, certain members or supporters of Act Up-Paris interviewed by AFP (ten in total) describe a "testing" situation and a collective who “is not doing well at all”. On March 16, the board of directors, made up of four volunteers, even published a press release to denounce “manifestations of anti-Semitism” at Act Up-Paris. "Even in the associations in quotation marks of 'gauchos', there is still a background of anti-Semitism that must be denounced", assures AFP a member of the CA, on condition of anonymity.

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One of the episodes took place on November 6 when an activist proposed a draft text of support for the Palestinians, caught under fire from Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip, a month after the October 7 massacres in Israel perpetrated by Hamas .

"I cried"

“We are not rid of the unnecessary guilt in the face of the Vichy regime,” we read in particular in this document, consulted by AFP. When Eva Vocz, a 31-year-old Jewish woman and one of the association's four employees, opened this email, "I cried," she says.

She says she is “deeply shocked” to read “anti-Semitic remarks” in an association “fighting discrimination”. This draft will not be discussed or published. She then collects the testimony of an Act Up-Paris activist, the target of death threats accompanied by swastikas at the door of his apartment.

“Anti-Semitism hits everyone. We will not let it happen,” she denounces on social networks, on the Act Up-Paris account, in a context of a sharp increase in the number of anti-Semitic acts in France.

But some activists, including Françoise Gil, denounce “instrumentalization”. “He is not Jewish, it was not at all an anti-Semitic act,” this socio-anthropologist told AFP. During a meeting on February 5 to which Eva Vocz attended by video, several activists attacked her and her publication.

“The first thing we should think of when we see a swastika at Act Up is the homosexual deportees,” says an activist, according to the report read by AFP. Another assures that Hamas is a “liberation movement”. Ms. Vocz's activism within the left-wing Jewish collective Golem is also mentioned. Two members of the board defend the employee.

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“I still found myself facing a pack that had organized itself to make a meeting my trial in dual allegiance. Because that’s the bottom line, it’s that I no longer serve the interests of Act Up but those from the State of Israel,” says Ms. Vocz, who has been on leave since mid-February.

“I said to myself: but in fact, as a Jew, we are not welcome”, as “in many struggles on the left at the moment”, says a sympathizer of Act Up, of Jewish faith, who wished to remain anonymous.  

“Verbal outbursts”  

In February, Françoise Gil was removed from Act Up-Paris. He is notably accused of having called Eva Vocz, behind his back, a "Zionist". A self-proclaimed “anti-Zionist”, Françoise Gil refutes all anti-Semitism. 

“In this case, it was “Zionist” not to say “Jewish”,” says Eva Vocz. “As soon as we have a sensitivity to the genocide clearly taking place in Gaza, we are accused of anti-Semitism,” deplores Ms. Gil while more than 32,900 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, according to the Hamas. 

Within Act Up-Paris, renowned for its punchy actions, we are worried about the future of an association which has difficulty recruiting and has around forty activists including around ten active ones. Its general meeting is scheduled for Saturday. In this context of tensions, weekly public meetings have been suspended "to avoid verbal or even physical excesses", recognizes Cecil Lhuiller, of the CA, and certain memberships are pending.

Comments on social networks are multiplying and two publications from a sympathizer specifically target Eva Vocz. “I will no longer leave room for harassment,” warns the thirty-year-old.