On the occasion of Marc Bloch’s induction into the Panthéon, a remark by historian Patrick Boucheron on France Culture reignited a debate that extends far beyond a media controversy. Behind the refusal to address contemporary antisemitism lies a broader question: the shifting use of the terms Jew, Zionist, and anti-Zionist, and the political consequences of these semantic changes. Comparing these usages with the lessons of Marc Bloch raises questions about the contemporary transformations of antisemitism.

François Rastier, Research Director in Linguistics, specialist in contemporary identity discourses, from Nazism to decolonialism. this article was published on le ddv.fr on July 24, 2026 . 

During a France Culture program devoted to Marc Bloch shortly before his induction into the Panthéon, journalist Guillaume Erner raised the issue of contemporary antisemitism with his guest Patrick Boucheron, professor at the Collège de France. Boucheron replied: “We’ll let you talk to yourself.” This striking reformulation of the expression “Keep talking” (Cause toujours !) shocked many, especially as Marc Bloch’s entry into the Panthéon simultaneously honored a distinguished scholar and a leading Resistance figure murdered because of Nazi antisemitism.

A petition signed by more than one hundred people was subsequently published in Marianne under the title: “The Return of Antisemitism: ‘What a Professor at the Collège de France Refuses to Discuss Must Be Said.’” It opened with a quotation from Marc Bloch’s The Historian’s Craft (Apologie pour l’histoire ou Métier d’historien), published posthumously in 1949:

“Misunderstanding the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past. But it may be no less futile to exhaust oneself trying to understand the past if one knows nothing of the present — Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (1949).”

“Misunderstanding the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past. But it may be no less futile to exhaust oneself trying to understand the past if one knows nothing of the present — Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (1949).”

The quotation was relatively restrained, even charitable, because Patrick Boucheron is hardly ignorant of the present. Rather, he has adopted a political position that L’Humanité openly defended, arguing that Boucheron had rightly refused Guillaume Erner’s attempt to link the antisemitism of the........

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