French lawmakers are preparing to vote on a government-backed bill that supporters say is needed to tackle evolving forms of antisemitism. Opponents argue it is in fact aimed at silencing criticism of Israel.
The bill – known as the “Yadan law” after the centrist MP who tabled it, Caroline Yadan – would tie hatred of Israel to hatred of Jews, making it an offence to call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
French MPs are due to debate it next week.
It comes against a backdrop of rising antisemitic acts in France – home to the largest Jewish population in the EU – following the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Figures from the French Interior Ministry in February revealed that more than half of anti-religious acts reported in 2025 targeted Jews. And while the number had decreased by 16 percent compared to 2024, antisemitic acts remain at an historic high.
Expanded terror offences
The proposed law would broaden the scope of two existing criminal offences: incitement to terrorism and glorification of terrorism.
Under current law, only “direct” incitement to terrorism is punishable, carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison and a €75,000 fine. The bill would extend that to “implicit” incitement.
It would also make it a criminal offence to glorify the perpetrator of a terrorist attack, not merely the act itself.
Most controversially, the bill creates a new offence of publicly calling for the “destruction of a state recognised by the French Republic”, punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and a €45,000 fine.
“Calling for the destruction of a state recognised by the French Republic would be a criminal offence,” said Yadan, a former member of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance parliamentary group who quit last summer in protest after he recognised the state of Palestine.
While the law itself does not single out Israel, which would have been unconstitutional, the bill’s preamble states that calls for the destruction of Israel and comparisons to a Nazi regime are “taking root in people’s minds with complete impunity”.
Yadan insists the bill carries a universal message. “It’s not specifically about Israel. But obviously, today, there is only one country in the world whose criticism takes the form of calls for its destruction, and that’s Israel. And you have to wonder why,” she told RFI.
“Calling for the destruction of a country is also calling for the annihilation of a people. That’s what we are targeting.”
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The bill also extends the existing offence of Holocaust denial to cover any “denial”, “downplaying” or “gross trivialisation” of crimes against humanity more broadly, and widens the right of anti-racist associations to bring civil proceedings.
An earlier draft sought to ban comparisons between Israel and the Nazi regime outright, but that provision was removed following advice from the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest administrative court. The court also removed a reference to criminalising “denial of a state”.
The French parliament’s law committee passed the latest version of the bill in January by 18 votes to 14.
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‘Thought policing’
The legislation rests on the premise that hatred of Israel is inseparable from hatred of the Jewish people – a principle aligned with certain working definitions of antisemitism, including that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
It has the backing of the government, centrist parties, the mainstream right and the far-right National Rally. At a meeting with Jewish organisations in February, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said that “contemporary anti-Zionism has become the mask of an old antisemitism”.
But legal experts have raised serious objections. In a statement inviting lawmakers to reject the bill, the Syndicate of French lawyers (SAF) said it “remains dangerous both for freedom of expression and for the fight against antisemitism”.
They warned of the implications of criminalising of “implicit” incitement. “By seeking to regulate what is implicit, the criminal courts would in effect be tasked with a hazardous form of thought policing,” it wrote.
François Dubuisson, a specialist in international and criminal law, argues that France’s existing legislation on glorifying terrorism has already been criticised by legal experts for being too broad.
Most judgments from the European Court of Human Rights say that to secure a conviction for terrorist discourse, you have to identify hate speech or incitement to commit an act of terrorism, he explains – not only glorification.
“So [French law] is already criticised, and now with this modification, it could [become] even broader.”
Dubuisson points to a recent case involving a trade unionist who was convicted for glorifying terrorism after distributing a leaflet describing the 7 October Hamas attack as a response to decades of Israeli occupation.
He was acquitted on appeal, Dubuisson explains, with the judge ruling the words offer political contextualisation, not glorification. Under the bill’s extended definition, “such a distinction could become harder to draw”.
He also believes the additional legislation is “absolutely unnecessary”, particularly in the case of calls for the destruction of the state of Israel – where existing offences including “incitement to violence, incitement to hatred towards a specific group like the Israelis, incitement to terrorism, glorification of war crimes, glorification of crimes against humanity” could all be applied, Dubuisson said.
He suggests the bill is designed “to create the impression that there is a new phenomena that requires a new law”.
“I think it’s only by ideology that this bill has been built.”
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Freedom of debate
Opponents of the bill argue that its real-world effect would be to suppress legitimate debate about Israeli government policy and the situation in Gaza – which has led UN investigators to accuse Israel of genocide.
“People are going to be very afraid to talk about Palestinian rights and Israeli crimes if this law is adopted,” said Cecile Marquerie, advocacy coordinator for an alliance of pro-Palestinian French NGOs.
She told RFI the proposed law would allow defenders of Israel “to throw lawsuits at journalists, academics, human rights organisations and lawyers who are denouncing Israeli crimes”.
A phrase such as “the Israeli apartheid regime must be dismantled” – language used by major human rights organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – “could very much fall within this new offence of a call for the destruction of a state”, she noted.
Critics also challenge the bill’s premise: that anti-Zionism is necessarily a form of antisemitism.
“The foundation of this bill is that hatred against Jews is inseparable from hatred against Israel. That’s identity labelling,” Marquerie argued. “It’s imposing a constrained solidarity with Israel on Jewish French citizens.
“Linking them to Israel is not protecting them, it’s exposing them.”
The bill is scheduled for debate on 16 and 17 April. Given the centre and right-wing bloc controls more seats than the left, the bill is expected to pass.
But a petition calling on MPs to reject the bill has gathered more than 500,000 signatures in recent days – meaning the National Assembly is obliged to consider holding a debate on the demand, opening the floor to lawyers and civil society groups.
It’s a lengthy process and is unlikely to happen before the MPs’ debate, but Marquerie notes that some centrist and centre-right lawmakers have already begun to look more closely at the bill’s content.
“The title of the law – presenting itself as a bill to combat new forms of antisemitism – is a trap,” she says. “Parliamentarians see that title and say, ‘I’m against antisemitism, so I’ll vote for it.’ They have to open the file and really look into it.”
Listen to this story on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 143.
