Last month several far-right leaders travelled to Israel for a government-organised conference on combating anti-Semitism.
“Hatred of Jews and the state of Israel is a global scourge that we must fight relentlessly,“ Bardella said, repeating his party’s new mantra that the National Rally (RN) “is today the best shield for our compatriots of Jewish faith”.
His daughter Marine Le Pen, who pushed him out of the party as part of her reform drive, marked her distance from her father “concerning all forms of anti-Semitism“, said Nonna Mayer, a political scientist at France’s CNRS research body.
The assault presented the RN with an “unexpected opportunity to exploit anti-Semitism so they could position themselves as the defenders of Jews in France and Israel”, Mayer said.
Similar rhetoric is heard elsewhere in Europe among identity-based right-wing parties, for whom immigration into Europe is a top policy issue.
In Germany, Beatrix von Storch -- a parliament member for the far-right AfD party and the granddaughter of Adolf Hitler's finance minister -- has promised Jews a “safe space” should her party win power.
Mayer said the policy shift across European far-right parties was linked to them seeing Islamism as “the number-one peril”.
“Or perhaps, for some, it is simply about Islam and Muslims in general.”
However, not all rank-and-file followers of far-right parties have adopted their leaders' support of Jews.
The same goes for Italy, where several members of Meloni's far-right Fratelli d'Italia party have been accused of making anti-Semitic statements.
The new trend among far-right leaders is, meanwhile, sparking mixed reactions among Jews themselves.
But Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, has accused Bardella of “politically exploiting” the fight against anti-Semitism as part of the RN’s strategy “to win power”.
A similar debate exists in the United States, where President Donald Trump serves as a model for many European far-right figures.
Amy Spitalnick, chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, told the New York Times this month she was doubtful about the motivation behind the administration's push to combat anti-Semitism.
“It’s about exploiting concerns about anti-Semitism to undermine democracy,“ she said.
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