French Journalist To Bring Antisemitism Exposé to New York

French investigative journalist Nora Bussigny will present her bestselling book, “Les Nouveaux Antisémites,” in New York this April, bringing to American audiences findings from a year-long undercover investigation that lays bare how antisemitism has become the unifying force of France’s radical left.The book, whose title translates to “The New Antisemites,” documents Ms. Bussigny’s infiltration of France’s far-left anti-Israel groups, where she argues that anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred have become the ideology’s binding tenets.The investigation grew from her previous book, “Les Nouveaux Inquisiteurs,” an undercover investigation of “woke” culture in France’s feminist, LGBT, and anti-racist circles. Three weeks after that book was published, Hamas launched its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.When feminist activists she had followed celebrated Hamas’s atrocities, Ms. Bussigny was compelled to investigate further. “I could not understand how feminists could justify the abuse suffered by Israeli women in the name of a supposedly ‘decolonial’ commitment,” she tells the Sun.For “Les Nouveaux Antisémites,” Ms. Bussigny spent a year embedded in France’s anti-Zionist organizations under a false identity. She attended demonstrations, infiltrated online chat groups, and carefully adopted the language and habits of those around her. Early on, she made the mistake of referring to the Jewish state as “Israel,” a name these activists eschew for terms like “the Zionist entity” or “Israhell.”During her investigation, Ms. Bussigny interviewed more than 100 people, including Jews and non-Jews, university students, and hard-line activists. She details in her book how several organizations — including Urgence Palestine, Palestine Vaincra, and Samidoun — receive political support in France, and at times public funding and access to public facilities, which they use to host events and workshops that radicalize young people.Ms. Bussigny’s efforts to document France’s radical anti-Zionist movement have come at considerable cost. Since publishing her book in September, she has been targeted by death threats and online hate campaigns that have required her to secure police protection at public events. She believes her half-Muslim heritage, from her Moroccan mother, has intensified the backlash, with critics accusing her of betraying the Palestinian cause.Ms. Bussigny has also faced boycotts from bookstores that have refused to stock her work. Even so, “Les Nouveaux Antisémites” has continued to top bestseller lists and has received widespread acclaim, including the 2025 Prix Edgar Faure award for best political book of the year. The sales figures signal that “the silent majority is on our side,” she says.Despite her pessimism about France — she has described it in interviews as potentially “a lost cause” — Ms. Bussigny retains some hope. “The French are well aware of the explosion of antisemitism, and we have recently seen which political parties strangely refused to adopt a resolution against the Muslim Brotherhood,” she says.She notes that progress has already been made in the months following her book’s release: France and Belgium are advancing efforts to ban Samidoun, which is already classified as a terrorist entity in Canada and America; France is also prosecuting several individuals linked to Islamist terrorism; A bill currently being sponsored by French parliamentarian Caroline Yadan would ban calls glorifying Hamas or demanding the destruction of Israel.However, Ms. Bussigny argues more work remains. “I believe there is still a lack of real sanctions against elected officials who grant privileged access to collectives and organizations linked to terrorism,” she tells the Sun. “It is not normal that I was able to chant calls supporting Hamas inside municipal buildings.”For American readers, Ms. Bussigny hopes her book can provide insights into “the psychology, rhetoric, and modus operandi of these activists.” Her work examines issues that extend to anti-Zionist movements in America: the social media boycott of influencers who support Israel — known as the “Block Out” movement — Iranian influence on young activists, and how intersectionality has fractured feminist causes, allowing Hamas-linked organizations to infiltrate them.Ms. Bussigny draws parallels between the campus activism that erupted at both American and French universities after October 7. During her investigation, she traveled to Columbia University — the epicenter of the anti-Israel encampment movement at American universities — and observed that its student activists employed tactics similar to those at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.“Like Columbia and other universities, we have professors who support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement and spread misinformation to their students,” Ms. Bussigny says. This “in turn leads to radicalization and violence in student mobilizations, including acts of aggression and exclusion targeting Jewish students.”Although her book is not yet available in English, Ms. Bussigny says she has been approached by literary agents and publishing houses interested in bringing the manuscript to America. She plans to travel to New York in April to present her book to American readers.She also hopes to visit Israel, which she describes as “a great dream” of hers. “I am especially eager to discover Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and above all to meet the Arab populations who live there — far removed from the apartheid narratives often attributed to Israel,” she says.

French Journalist To Bring Antisemitism Exposé to New York

French Journalist To Bring Antisemitism Exposé to New York

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