Kushner sparks French outrage with antisemitism accusations in Macron letter

Charles Kushner arrived in Paris as more than a routine envoy. Nominated by Donald Trump on February 12, 2025, confirmed by the Senate by a 51-45 vote on May 19, and sworn in by Trump and Marco Rubio on June 18, 2025, Kushner now serves as U.S. ambassador to the French Republic and the Principality of Monaco. His first major political shockwave came when he sent an open letter to Emmanuel Macron accusing France of doing too little against antisemitism.

The letter, published in The Wall Street Journal, went straight to the heart of French political sensitivities. Kushner argued that anti-Zionism is antisemitism and warned that many French Jews feared history could repeat itself. French officials called the allegations “unacceptable,” summoned him to the Quai d’Orsay, and said the comments crossed a diplomatic line by interfering in another country’s internal affairs. The U.S. embassy’s chargé d’affaires attended in his place, underscoring how quickly the dispute escalated from a letter to an institutional rebuke.

The substance of the dispute is not abstract. The SPCJ reported 1,676 antisemitic acts in France in 2023 and 1,570 in 2024, marking the second straight year above 1,000 incidents. The group said the 2024 cases primarily targeted individuals, were often violent, and were spread across nearly the whole country. France’s foreign ministry said it had “fully mobilized” against the rise in antisemitic acts over the past two years, while Jewish organizations including CRIF and SPCJ have treated the surge as a national security and social crisis rather than a symbolic issue.

Kushner’s intervention also landed in a country where knowledge of the Holocaust is fraying among younger people. A Claims Conference survey released in January 2025 found that 46% of French youth did not know about the Holocaust. In his letter, Kushner cited survey data and linked the issue to the safety of Jewish schools, synagogues and businesses, widening the argument beyond diplomatic protocol to the durability of Jewish life in France.

That is what makes the episode bigger than a personal clash. Kushner’s background as a businessman and philanthropist, and his earlier appointment by Bill Clinton to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, gave his warning added weight. But it also exposed the limits of Trump-style diplomacy in Paris, where alliance management still depends on restraint, and where public pressure on a close ally can quickly turn a policy dispute into a broader test of trust.