The latest edition of the French magazine for young children Youpi featured a fact sheet that stated: “We call these 197 countries ‘states’, like France, Germany, or Algeria. There a few more, but not all other countries in the world agree that these are real states (for example Israel or North Korea).”
Choquée par ce mensonge enseigné à des enfants. Une telle réthorique ne peut qu’inciter à l’antisionisme, indissociable de l’ comme l’a rappelé le Président français pic.twitter.com/X0KBrGfknl
— Aliza Bin Noun (@AlizaBinNoun)
Israeli Ambassador to France and Monaco Aliza Bin Noun tweeted—tagging President Emmanuel Macron—that she was “Shocked by this lie being taught to children. Such rhetoric can only encourage anti-Zionism, inseparable from anti-Semitism.”
Francis Kalifat, President of France’s umbrella Jewish group CRIF, said in an interview to i24news: “Israel has been recognized as a sovereign state since 1948 and by the United Nations since 1949.” He accused the magazine of “political revisionism.”
Youpi’s publisher, Editions Bayard Jeunesse, apologized “to all those who may have been hurt,” declared that the fact sheet “does not mean that Bayard does not recognize the existence of Israel!” and announced it was recalling the December issue from the newsstands.