Twenty years after Ilan Halimi’s death, Emmanuel Macron will plant an oak in the Élysée gardens to honor his memory and call for fighting antisemitism in France. This ceremony, announced on February 11, comes as antisemitic acts rose 134% in 2025. The president will denounce hate propagators from various political circles.
February 13, 2026, will mark the twentieth anniversary of Ilan Halimi’s death, a 23-year-old French Jew kidnapped, held, and tortured in January 2006 by about twenty people calling themselves the “gang des barbares,” led by Youssouf Fofana. Found naked, gagged, and handcuffed along a railway track in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois in Essonne, he died during transfer to the hospital.
To commemorate the event, Emmanuel Macron will plant a sessile oak on Friday in the Élysée gardens. This tree, symbolizing strength, longevity, and justice and selected with Halimi’s family, also addresses recent vandalism of memorial trees. In January, an olive tree was partially cut in the Lyon suburbs. In August 2025, a tree in Épinay-sur-Seine was felled; two brothers were sentenced, one to eight months in prison and the other to eight months suspended, but the court did not recognize an antisemitic motive due to insufficient evidence they knew of the memorial. The prosecution has appealed.
The ceremony will gather around 200 guests, including Halimi’s family, organization representatives, engaged youth, and judicial authorities. The president will deliver a speech identifying antisemitism propagators, mentioning the far right, far left, identitarian, and community circles. “He will not only state the facts but also identify and qualify the propagators and propaganda spreading the antisemitic poison at the heart of our nation,” a presidential advisor said.
This initiative comes amid rising antisemitic acts: 504 recorded from January to May 2025, a 134% increase from 2023, linked to the Gaza war following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, in Israel. Macron will denounce unfounded accusations against French Jews and deliver a message of solidarity to the country’s Jewish citizens, calling for mobilization across society.
