As president of the World Council of Jewish Communal Service, I was in Paris last April meeting with French Jewish communal leadership. These individuals represented philanthropic, civic, social service, education, and community relations agencies.

In reflecting on their observations, I was impressed by their Jewish and French pride. Because of its collaborationist past during World War II, France has undeservedly been saddled with a harsh reputation in confronting Nazism, these leaders indicated. Yet two thirds of French Jewry survived World War II — often due to heroic actions by fellow Frenchmen — while nearly 90 percent of Dutch Jewry, including Anne Frank — did not.

For several years — coincident with the beginning of the Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza — French authorities had ignored the growing anti-Semitism manifested in dozens of acts of vandalism and attacks perpetrated against Jews and Jewish institutions. These incidents were characterized as criminal, not anti-Semitic. During the past year, however, there has been a near 180-degree turnaround by the French government authorities in correctly identifying these crimes as heinous acts of anti-Semitism.

Today, the Interior, Justice, and Education ministries are working in a coordinated fashion to prosecute those agitators who call for acts of violence against Jews, and to modify school curricula to emphasize tolerance and a "one France" concept.

Who is responsible for this rise in anti-Semitism? The leaders I met with believed that it is a small minority of the six million Arab immigrants from North Africa who refuse to be integrated into French society. They are the ones who are responsive to the calls of some radical imams, exhorting them to spread the message that Islam ought to be the religion for all of France. Many from this population are among the underclass of France and comprise 80 percent of prisoners in French jails. Often their acts of violence are framed as part of the "local Intifada" against French Jews. They seek to humiliate Jews in Paris and Marseilles because they are unable to do so in the West Bank, Gaza, or Israel.

Despite the growing incidence of anti-Semitism, the French Jewish leaders felt that a recently aired television documentary depicting tensions between Jews and Arabs in a Parisian suburb was misleading because it neglected to report positive developments, such as the promising dialogue under way between Jewish and Arab leaders.

They also concluded that relations between the "indigenous" French population and the Jewish community were excellent, and they applauded the state's efforts to separate religion from the public schools by barring religious symbols in their classrooms.

Some may consider this view as overly optimistic; indeed, the leadership is uniformly concerned about the anti-Israel animus among members of the French government, intellectual elites, and political parties, primarily of the Left, including former communists and the Green Party. France has chilly relations with the Jewish state, owing perhaps to a variety of factors:

• Realpolitik, in which France prefers engaging with 22 Arab countries vs. one Jewish state;

• Internal politics (Muslims constitute more than 10 percent of France's population);

• Antiglobalist ideology, which portrays Israel as an outpost of colonialism in the Middle East; or

• The impulse to romanticize the struggles of "people of color" against occupation. When the French and European media demonizes Israel as being "Nazi-like" it only encourages the perpetrators of anti-Semitic crimes who don't differentiate between Israelis and Jews.

Nevertheless, French Jews take great pride in their Jewishness and their relations to Israel. Ten percent of French Jewry, for example, celebrated Passover in Israel. Recent rallies against anti-Semitism and in support of Israel have attracted more than 200,000 French Jews.

Reflecting on the motto of the French Revolution, "liberté, egalité, fraternité", I can report that for French Jews, a resounding "yes" to the first two; "fraternité", however, is another story and the outcome is far from certain.

Max L. Kleinman is President of the World Council of Jewish Communal Service and Executive Vice President of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey.