{"id":27124,"date":"2026-04-18T03:05:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T07:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T03:05:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T07:05:43","slug":"french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"French MPs withdraw controversial \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>The draft law was criticized for allegedly conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish sentiment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"692\" data-end=\"891\">French lawmakers linked to President Emmanuel Macron have withdrawn a controversial bill aimed at expanding anti-Semitism laws in the country, which had been set for debate in parliament on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"893\" data-end=\"1168\">The <em>\u201claw to combat renewed forms of anti-Semitism\u201d<\/em> was drafted in 2024 by a group of MPs led by Caroline Yadan, a lawmaker affiliated with Macron\u2019s Renaissance Party. Despite the withdrawal, lawmakers have reportedly indicated they may reintroduce a similar proposal by June.<\/p>\n<p>The draft aimed to broaden the definition of \u2018apology for terrorism\u2019 to include \u2018indirect\u2019 speech deemed pro-terrorist. It also sought to make it illegal to call for the destruction of any country recognized by France.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n        <span><strong>Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<figure>\n            <imgsrc=\"\" alt=\"A Palestinian flag hangs in Place de la Republique as part of a protest asking for the ''recognition of the State of Palestine and the end of the genocide'' in Paris, France, on September 21, 2025.\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/625082-france-recognizes-palestinian-state\/\">France recognizes Palestinian state<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The initiative faced significant pushback, with critics warning that the bill <em>\u201cconflates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel.\u201d<\/em> A petition against the proposal published on the French parliament\u2019s website gathered more than 700,000 signatures as of Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Critics also said the proposed law could restrict legitimate free speech and potentially fuel the anti-Jewish sentiment it was intended to combat, according to France24.<\/p>\n<p>According to France\u2019s Jewish protection organization, the SPCJ, at least 1,320 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in the country last year, maintaining the sharp rise seen after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict in 2023. The Israeli military operation in Gaza has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian authorities, and has drawn mounting international criticism.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2243\" data-end=\"2462\">France, where Muslims make up an estimated one-tenth of the population, formally recognized Palestinian statehood last year, joining a wave of Western nations advocating a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The draft law was criticized for allegedly conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish sentiment French lawmakers linked to President Emmanuel Macron have withdrawn a controversial bill aimed at expanding anti-Semitism laws in the country, which had been set for debate in parliament on Thursday. The \u201claw to combat renewed forms of anti-Semitism\u201d was drafted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rt-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>French MPs withdraw controversial \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 bill - Sting FM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"French MPs withdraw controversial \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 bill - Sting FM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The draft law was criticized for allegedly conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish sentiment French lawmakers linked to President Emmanuel Macron have withdrawn a controversial bill aimed at expanding anti-Semitism laws in the country, which had been set for debate in parliament on Thursday. 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The \u201claw to combat renewed forms of anti-Semitism\u201d was drafted [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill\/","og_site_name":"Sting FM","article_published_time":"2026-04-18T07:05:43+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill\/","url":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill\/","name":"French MPs withdraw controversial \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 bill - Sting FM","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-04-18T07:05:43+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/french-mps-withdraw-controversial-anti-semitism-bill\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"French MPs withdraw controversial \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 bill"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/","name":"Sting FM","description":"Just another WordPress site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/author\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stingfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}