Jonathan Ruff-Zhan went to Nice to discuss the themes around « Fighting in Rupture, Fighting in Solidarity », an essay written by the Tsedek! collective. Organized by the Human Rights League of Nice, this exchange was an opportunity to address issues related to the normalization of the far right and the phenomenon of social movements.
An exchange around « Fighting in Rupture, Fighting in Solidarity » was organized by the Human Rights League of Nice. This essay was published by Éditions Premiers Matins de Novembre on February 6th by the Tsedek! collective.
As co-founder and member, Jonathan Ruff-Zhan came to exchange with Nice residents at the Les Parleuses Bookstore. Coming from a family of far-left activists, he became aware of activist consciousness very early by listening to rap. A child of a working-class neighborhood, this former social worker became interested in issues related to decoloniality and racism. He became involved in decolonial, antifascist and Yellow Vests movements. The activist was also a member of the French Jewish Union for Peace. Several co-founders of Tsedek! are indeed directly from this organization.
More than a political movement, it is a true Jewish community with a cultural dimension. With 400 members, Tsedek! is a place for exchange and sharing. « Our political ideas are currently quite marginalized and minority within Jewish communities« , Jonathan admitted.
The question of Zionism is at the heart of political, geopolitical and legal debates, particularly in the context of the Israeli legislative elections of October 27, 2026 and the ongoing war in Gaza. Tsedek! then carries the philosophy of a revolutionary and emancipatory Jewishness. In other words, Jewish people must be able to assume their diasporic identities, acknowledging that they come from a people of exiles. « Our salvation will not come through the establishment of a colonial and racialized nation-state« , Jonathan Ruff-Zhan explained, referring to the regime of Benjamin Netanyahu. Being a decolonial Jew means refusing to have Jewish identity automatically associated with the policy of the State of Israel.
After two years of existence (2023), the collective draws up a first assessment of their political activity and their perspectives for the future in « Fighting in Rupture, Fighting in Solidarity« . Tsedek! claims the legacy of political anti-racism and decoloniality.
On the eve of the 2027 presidential election, the polarization of political society excludes all forms of nuance. Far-right ideologies are anchoring themselves in territories, while social movements are multiplying.
An Instrumentalization of the Fight Against Anti-Semitism
Tsedek! offers a space for Jewish people refusing to have their identity or the fight against anti-Semitism be used as a means of legitimation, to convey far-right ideas.
The National Rally’s distancing from extremist ideological heritage was a determining factor to « de-demonize » itself and reassure the moderate electorate. The rhetoric of the discourse was softened, by abandoning aggressive slogans, by renouncing the name « National Front » and by breaking with certain stigmas of an anti-Semitic past.
During the meeting with the Tsedek! activist, several people expressed their discomfort regarding the organization of commemorations for the Holocaust alongside Éric Ciotti, mayor of the city of Nice and president of the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis.
As a reminder, the president of the UDR officially pledged his support to Marine Le Pen for the 2027 presidential election. The latter is an inescapable figure of the National Rally, a far-right party. Its ancestor, the National Front, emerged from an initiative of the neofascist movement « Ordre nouveau« , whose first executives came from various sensibilities of the radical right, including notably former Waffen-SS members such as Pierre Bousquet and Léon Gaultier.
One of the members of the Human Rights League considered organizing civic commemorations. « The far right is at the gates of power and our way of understanding history is simply a total failure. Never again is not an empty phrase that we can toss out to ease our conscience and lay a bouquet of flowers« , declared Jonathan Ruff–Zhan.
This instrumentalization would lead to making anti-Semitic acts invisible. Reducing the fight against anti-Semitism to a rhetorical tool or a geopolitical argument would obscure daily acts, causing them to lose their concrete reality. Nearly 1,320 anti-Semitic acts were recorded in 2025 by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights. The latter raised an alert about the alarming level of overexposure of French Jews to acts of violence against persons. In a post-October 7, 2023 context, « this instrumentalization also produces anti-Semitism by assigning us responsibility for what is happening in Israel« , Jonathan stated.
This instrumentalization condemned by Tsedek! becomes a means for far-right movements to pass « a nationalist and racist discourse« by targeting minorities. For Jonathan Ruff-Zhan, the finding is clear : « the far right also benefits from the complicity of a bourgeoisie, which will always prefer fascism to a revolutionary project. »
The prohibition of demonstrations on October 24 imposed on several cities, such as Nice, constitutes the extension of an authoritarian hardening for the Tsedek! activist.
A Mutation of Social Movements
Despite the progression of the far right, the activist noted a significant evolution of political anti-racist discourse in public debate : « this question is omnipresent in several struggles. »
As opposed to moral anti-racism, political anti-racism is an approach to racism as a system of structural and institutional domination, not as mere individual prejudices. Tsedek! fights against the hierarchicalization of forms of racism, by integrating anti-Semitism. No minority should be protected at the expense of another.
Tsedek!’s desire to « fight in solidarity to hope for a better world » refers to recent mobilizations. Bringing together the Yellow Vests movement and students, the demonstrations of October 17 and 24 marked a turning point in that they represent a true convergence of struggles and embody a left of rupture. « Today’s youth synthesizes all of our struggles and in a much more conscious way than all the paternalistic attitude that adults have towards them« , Jonathan assured. Today’s youth has been raised through different social movements, from the Yellow Vests, to marches for Climate and for Palestine. For the Tsedek! activist, this convergence is unequivocal : « I think that we are winning a cultural battle. Today, we see French flags alongside Palestinian flags and we hear siamo tutti antifascisti* and the song of the Marseillaise. »
* »Siamo tutti antifascisti » (we are all antifascists) is a slogan originating from Italian of the 1920s, as a cry of resistance to the rise of Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime.
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