The felling of a memorial tree in Paris may seem, at first glance, a petty act of vandalism. But in truth it is anything but, it is another manifestation of growing antisemitism across Europe.
The olive tree cut down this week was planted to honour Ilan Halimi, a young French Jew tortured and murdered by a gang in 2006. His killing, brutal and senseless, shocked France into confronting the realities of antisemitism festering in its midst. Fourteen years later, the symbolic attack on his memory is no random act. It is an unmistakable message: the hatreds that murdered Halimi have not gone away, and in some quarters they are emboldened.
President Emmanuel Macron, to his credit, spoke with unusual clarity, calling the felling of the tree “an attempt to kill him a second time.” He vowed that “all means are being deployed to punish this act of hatred.” Paris police have duly launched an investigation, and Laurent Nuñez, the city’s police chief, promised the perpetrators will be found. Yet behind the defiance lurks an uncomfortable truth: France, like much of Europe, is losing the battle against a rising tide of antisemitism.
It would be comforting to dismiss the incident as the work of one deranged individual. But that would be wilful blindness. Across France, synagogues and Jewish schools require police protection. Cemeteries have been defaced with swastikas. Jewish families speak openly of their fear. Each outrage prompts the same cycle of condemnation, promises of zero tolerance, and then silence until the next attack. Meanwhile, Jews are leaving France in numbers, many for Israel, unwilling to raise their children in a country where hatred too often goes unpunished.
Nor is this a uniquely French malaise. Germany, despite its solemn remembrance culture, has seen a steep rise in antisemitic incidents—from attacks on worshippers in Halle to the defacing of Holocaust memorials in Berlin. In Britain, the Community Security Trust reported record levels of antisemitic hate crimes in recent years, fuelled in part by conspiracy theories spread online. Across Europe, the old poison has seeped back into the mainstream. Sometimes it wears the mask of Islamist fanaticism, sometimes the smirk of the far-Right, and sometimes it cloaks itself in the rhetoric of “anti-Zionism.” The form varies, the hatred is the same.
The cutting down of Halimi’s memorial tree is so chilling precisely because it strikes at memory itself. Ilan Halimi’s murder was not just a crime against one man; it was an attempt to terrorise an entire community. The olive tree was planted as an act of resistance, a quiet promise that France would not forget. To attack that tree is to declare that promise broken. Macron is right: it is an attempt to kill him again, to erase his memory from public space.
But fine words from the Élysée are not enough. France’s Jewish community has heard them before. Nicolas Sarkozy vowed “never again” after the Halimi case. François Hollande declared antisemitism a “national crisis.” Macron himself has spoken movingly at Holocaust commemorations. Yet the attacks continue, and confidence in the state’s protection continues to erode. At some point, the rhetoric must be matched by results. Otherwise, it risks sounding like hollow theatre.
The wider European context is no more reassuring. Brussels issues statements about “values” while failing to confront the hate preachers and extremists in its own backyard. European leaders make solemn pilgrimages to Auschwitz and Dachau, then look the other way when Jewish students are harassed on university campuses or when online platforms teem with antisemitic bile. This moral cowardice creates the atmosphere in which attacks like the felling of Halimi’s tree become possible.
There is also a deeper cultural rot at work. In too many European societies, antisemitism is treated as a secondary issue, a footnote in the broader battle against racism. Yet it is the oldest hatred, and it thrives precisely when elites are complacent. The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers. It began with vandalism, desecration, and the slow normalisation of contempt. Europe should know this better than anyone.
The cutting of a tree may not, on its own, shock governments into action. But it should. It is a warning that antisemitism remains alive, that the reassurances of presidents and police chiefs are not enough, and that Europe’s promise of “never again” is in danger of becoming a platitude.
Macron is right that this act represents an attempt to kill Ilan Halimi again. The real question is whether France, and Europe as a whole, are willing to ensure that the killers—whether armed with knives or chainsaws—finally lose. Until then, Jewish citizens will continue to live in fear, and Europe will continue to betray its own values.
Main Image: Caroline Fourest via X
