Israeli Fauda actress warns Jews no longer safe in France amid riots, rising antisemitism

The French-born Israeli actress, Virginie Khalifa Hag, from the award-winning series "Fauda" warned in a Ynet News interview that France is no longer safe for Jews amid rising antisemitism and recent riots. France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, numbering around half a million people. France is also home to Western Europe’s largest Muslim population, numbering between six and seven million people.

Khalifa Hag expressed concern for her mother’s safety in Paris during the recent unrest in the French capital.

"My mother manages a shop on a small street near the Champs-Élysées," Khalifa Hag said. "The shop owner insisted on opening as usual. Fairly early on, it became clear that things were getting bad, with rioting and violence. Suddenly, Free Palestine flags appeared as well."

"She practically hid in the store, quietly closed up and walked to a Metro station farther away, just to avoid all the chaos, with people destroying, burning and smashing everything," the actress added.

"What's happening in France is insane, but the writing was on the wall," she said. "This is not the country I grew up in. My late father always told me, 'We grew up in Algeria. We're not afraid.' But today, Jews are afraid. Paris is burning. It's really an intifada."

"Rioters dressed in black suits and masks actually looted her shop, and she couldn't stop them," Khalifa Hag revealed. "There was a lot of smoke in the area. Everyone watching television is asking themselves where the government is and why it isn't dealing with this more effectively."

Khalifa Hag, who moved to Israel 13 years ago, said she is not surprised by the current riots and antisemitism in France.

"Antisemitism was always there, and from a young age I felt this wasn't necessarily the best place for us. In the family clothing business, Chinese traders gradually entered the market, Jewish-owned shops closed and people left for America and Israel."

She said she spent much of her childhood visiting Israel each summer, staying for at least six weeks with cousins who had immigrated to the country as children and grown up in Herzliya Pituach.

"Here, I felt that everything was open, that people helped one another and that I was never alone. In France, people don't help so easily. They don't readily introduce you to their contacts. In Israel, it's the exact opposite. So many times I met someone who said, 'If you need anything, just let me know,'" Khalifa Hag explained.

The married actress now lives in a rural area in northern Israel. She said she lost touch with many friends in Turkey and Greece after the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza.

"But they stopped talking to me when the war broke out on October 7. Only a handful sent me messages saying, 'We're with you.' With many friends from Turkey and Greece, you can't talk about anything because, as far as they're concerned, 'we committed genocide,'" she said.

The actress addressing the future of French Jewry amid antisemitism.

Khalifa Hag urged French Jews to consider leaving the country. "Be prepared to leave, because you won't be safe in France anymore." She added that some people are already buying apartments in Israel as a precaution.

The fifth season of "Fauda" explores the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attack, rising global antisemitism and Islamist networks in the West, with part of the season set in Marseille, France.