Amid the rise in hate crimes aimed at the Jewish community in France, the World Zionist Organization conducted a survey to calculate the level of anti-Semitism among French citizens
The survey revealed that more than 40% of the French population holds some kind of anti-Semitic beliefs, the most common one being that Jews "have too much power in the business world."
The survey also found that 47% of the population believes that "French Jews are more loyal to Israel than the country where they live."
Nineteen percent of young men up to 24 expressed negative attitudes toward Jews in France and 43% of those with a university degree or higher expressed positive attitudes towards the Jews of France.
Fifty-four percent of those with a college education or higher believe the anti-Semitic sentiments are primarily based on negative feelings towards Jews as a whole and have nothing to do with anti-Zionist attitudes felt in other European countries. On this note, the survey also found that 60% of French citizens prefer not to lend an opinion on the Israel-Arab conflict.
Last year French President Francois Hollande promised to take a tougher stance on hate crimes aimed at the country's Jewish population and said he would take efforts to curb the string of anti-Semitic crimes in the country. These included the massacre of three young Jewish children and a rabbi at the Jewish school in Toulouse in March 2012 and a vicious attack on three people wearing skullcaps by a group of assailants with a hammer and iron bar in the southeastern French city of Villeurbanne in June.