PARIS, France — France’s main Jewish association on Monday distanced itself from an unprecedented invitation for two key figures in the French far-right to attend a conference this week in Israel on the fight against antisemitism.

Jordan Bardella, party leader of the National Rally (RN), and his fellow MEP Marion Marechal, who leads another far-right movement and is the niece of three-time RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, have been invited by the Israeli government to attend the conference on March 26 and 27.

Bardella will be the first RN leader to visit Israel while Marechal, the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded the RN as the National Front (FN), will be the first member of the Le Pen family to visit Israel.

The participation of the pair and other far-right European figures has prompted a slew of Jewish participants to pull out, among them the head of the Anti-Defamation League and Britain’s chief rabbi.

This invitation “has come from Israel” and “does not involve the Jewish institutions of France,” said Yonathan Arfi, head of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), the main umbrella association of French Jewish groups.

Arfi told the RMC broadcaster that French Jewish institutions had traditionally held a position of “distrust towards the National Rally” motivated by “historical reasons.”

Afri stressed the need for “critical distance” towards the RN, and said the fight against antisemitism “cannot be exploited politically.”

“Today, we feel that this........

© The Times of Israel