Am I missing something? In defense of the French government

Ariel Sharon's recent suggestion that French Jews head to Israel has not made the French any more thrilled with Sharon than before.

As Le Monde notes, "La France ne recensant pas les individus sur la base de leur origine ethnique ou religieuse." (France doesn't keep records of people on the basis of ethnicity or religious origin).* Immediately following an anti-Semitic incident French President Jacques Chirac "announced an anti-Semitism task force" and "warned the criminals that 'when you attack a Jew in France, understand that it is all of France that is being attacked.'" And yet, as the New York Times points out, "What complicates matters is that there is no love lost between the Israeli and French governments these days." French Jews, the first to be emancipated, now live under a French government that is hostile to both anti-Semitism and, in a sense, Zionism.

While plenty of people use criticism of Israel as a guise for anti-Semitism, the French government is acting consistently when it condemns anti-Semitism yet doesn't leap with joy when Sharon invites hundreds of thousands of its people to jump ship; that the French government is neither anti-Semitic nor entirely pro-Israel does not strike me as contradictory in the least.  To France, officially, there are no Jews, just French citizens, many of whom may be of Jewish origin/religion, most not, but, as noted above, the French themselves are not technically keeping track. It is the duty of France, a secular nation, to defend the right of French people of Jewish--or any other--origin to remain French. Wouldn't it be somewhat anti-Semitic of France to tell Sharon, "you can have 'em"?

For France to be "pro-Israel" in this instance, for it to have Israel's best interests at heart, it would offer Jews to help build that country's Jewish population. But France should hold the interests of its own Jewish population above those of the state of Israel, which means trying to crack down on anti-Semitism in France, not sending its Jews elsewhere.