Few have felt safe here for years

The most comprehensive report on how European Jews feel about antisemitism, which was published in November 2013 by the European Union's Agency for Fundamental Rights, showed a striking contrast between France and Britain.

More than half of French Jews – 52 per cent – believed antisemitism was a "very big" problem in their country, compared with 11 per cent in the UK and 28 per cent for European Jews as a whole, according to the survey.

More than half of French Jews said they always, or often, avoided wearing something that publicly identified them as Jewish, compared with 21 per cent in the UK and 36 per cent in Europe generally.

Almost half of French Jews said they had considered emigrating over the previous five years because they did not feel safe, compared to 19 per cent in the UK and 31 per cent in Europe.

Last year, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights reported that although Jews represented less than one per cent of the French population, they suffered 40 per cent of violent racist attacks recorded in 2013.

As an example, the commission cited the case of a rabbi and his kippah-wearing son attacked by a man with a knife as they walked to shul.

In an interview shortly before last week's murders in Paris, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the American Atlantic magazine that there was "a new antisemitism in France. We have the old antisemitism, and I'm obviously not downplaying it, that comes from the extreme right, but this new antisemitism comes from the difficult neighbourhoods, from immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have turned anger about Gaza into something very dangerous. Israel and Palestine are just a pretext. There is something far more profound taking place now."

In the first seven months of last year, the Society for the Protection of the Jewish Community in France reported that antisemitic incidents – including verbal threats – had almost doubled from 2013 (up from 276 to 527).

The antisemitic comedian Dieudonne – inventor of the notorious reverse-Nazi salute, the quenelle - had upped the ante earlier in the year, claiming the right of free speech while his act was banned in some cities. He is now under investigation for a Facebook post, saying: "I am Charlie Coulibaly" [a reference to the perpetrator of last week's supermarket atrocity].

In the summer, protests over the Israel-Gaza conflict ran out of control. Shouts of "deaths to the Jews" were heard among a 400-mob who attacked a synagogue and kosher supermarket in the Paris district of Sarcelles.

In September, two teenagers were reportedly arrested for a suicide plot against the Great Synagogue in Lyon.

Before the year was out, another incident had made headlines around the world. A young Jewish woman was raped in her Paris flat during a burglary by assailants who had apparently believed Jews offered rich pickings. It was "intolerable," said French President Francois Holland, "an assault on all France holds dear."

Already, many Jews have had enough. Around 3,300 made aliyah from France in 2013, an increase of 70 per cent from the previous year. That doubled last year to close to 6, 700 out of a Jewish population estimated at 475,000 by London's Institute for Jewish Policy Research. An unknown number of French Jews have made their homes elsewhere, including London, over the past few years, although some have been driven by economic reasons.

The aliyah rate is widely expected to reach 10,000 this year.