Ilan Halimi had his whole life ahead of him. A loving family—his mother, Ruth, and his sisters. Friends, dreams. Dreams like those you have at 23, and the smile of someone who looks at others as a promise.

Ilan Halimi was Jewish. And it is because he was Jewish that, for 20 years now, he has been missing from us all.

It is because he was Jewish that he was subjected to an unspeakable ordeal, a 24-day calvary straight out of the darkest ages.

Everything about the barbaric horror that unfolded 20 years ago inspires dread: Ilan’s abduction—conceived, premeditated, organized. His confinement in a cellar in Bagneux. The belief that, because he was Jewish, he must have had the means to pay unimaginable ransoms. The absurdity of antisemitic prejudice, the machinery of torture, the denial of his humanity.

Everything is dreadful. The barbarity of the murderers, the cruelty of their accomplices, the cowardly pact of those who pretended not to see.

Everything is dreadful. And this dread cannot fade, because over the past 20 years, antisemitic barbarism has not retreated. On the contrary, it has continued to regenerate.

The barbarism of those who, by desecrating a memorial, vandalizing places erected in his memory, uprooting his tree, sought to kill Ilan Halimi a second time.

The barbarism of the terrorists of Ozar Hatorah, who, in 2012, took the lives of Myriam Monsonego and Jonathan, Arié, and Gabriel Sandler.

The barbarism of the jihadists of the Hyper Cacher, who, in 2015, murdered Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham, and François-Michel Saada.

The barbarism of the murderers of Sarah Halimi, of Mireille Knoll, of René Hadjadj—and I do not forget Sébastien Selam.

The barbarism beyond our borders of those who attacked the synagogue of El Ghriba, that of Heaton Park.

The barbarism of the murderers of Bondi Beach.

Yes, in 20 years—and despite the determined action of our police officers, gendarmes, magistrates, teachers, and elected officials—the antisemitic hydra has continued to grow. Constantly taking on new faces, it has infiltrated the intimacy of our societies, every crack and crevice, once again too often accompanied by the same cowardly pact: not to speak, to refuse to see.

Islamist antisemitism—the one at the origin of the pogrom of Oct. 7—which preachers of hatred attempt to spread on our soil, in physical spaces as well as online, sometimes with the complicity of foreign media, seeking to reign through terror.

The antisemitism of the far left, which seeks to replace class struggle with a supposed racial struggle, through chilling amalgams, competing with that of the far right and its clichés about power and wealth.

Antisemitism that wears the mask of anti-Zionism to advance quietly. The kind that exploits criticism of Israeli government policy to delegitimize, assign, and deny the right to exist of the Hebrew state—and ultimately denies Jews themselves the right to live. The same antisemitism that, in a vertiginous historical inversion, seeks to portray Jews as genocidal perpetrators, in an unacceptable and odious manner.

Digital antisemitism, fueled by algorithms and the culpable inaction of platforms, reaching ordinary people, corrupting our youth, multiplying itself, harassing thousands of our fellow citizens deep into their private lives—haunting days and nights, dreams and imaginations.

All these contemporary expressions of antisemitism, recombining with its older forms, make possible the intolerable banality of evil.

Yes, a young woman is nicknamed “the Jew” in a student group chat; an elected official called a “dirty Zionist” at a demonstration; Jewish feminist activists pushed aside during the March 8 marches; classrooms where teaching the Shoah is abandoned—too sensitive, too dangerous; a synagogue set on fire in Rouen; another attacked in La Grande-Motte; a rabbi assaulted in the street in Orléans; another—dear Elie Lemmel—assaulted twice in a single week.

So many attempts to dehumanize our Jewish compatriots. So many insults, blows, threats, anxieties—so many that statistics on antisemitic acts, which have sharply increased since Oct. 7, capture only imperfectly. These figures already describe the unacceptable, yet they obscure the unbearable daily reality: insults, stares, humiliations that exclude and oppress.

France forgets itself when it allows these everyday barbarities to develop within it—the breeding ground of the gravest crimes.

France forgets itself when some of its children are forced to change their names on apps, remove their mezuzahs, hide their kippahs, or lie about who they are.

France forgets itself when some of its children hesitate to go out at night out of fear, as a high-school student told me just days ago, of becoming the next Ilan Halimi.

France forgets itself when anxiety outweighs republican protection, when solitude replaces solidarity, when abandonment eclipses fraternity.

That is why the fight against antisemitism is the fight of every French citizen. Because French Jews cannot be erased from the family photograph of the Republic. Because when a Jew is in danger in this homeland, the homeland itself is in danger. And let no one doubt this today.

When questions arise, when doubts surface, when grief overwhelms, never forget this: Your place is here. Not only because this is your country, but because France needs you to remain itself.

Much—very much—has been done by successive governments to secure places of worship, train security forces and magistrates, strengthen education and diplomacy, including the adoption of the definition of antisemitism recognized by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Often, when confronted with aggression or insults, our fellow citizens stand up, intervene, speak out. But mobilization must intensify.

To fight the poison of online hatred, France will solemnly demand accountability from major platforms and measurable results in the rapid removal of hateful content. If commitments are not met, we will activate European law providing for significant fines—and I have referred this matter to the president of the European Commission. Regardless of those who wish to lecture us, in the France of the Enlightenment, free speech ends where antisemitism and racism begin. We will demand accountability and results.

Too often, sentences handed down for antisemitic offenses and crimes seem derisory. Too often, the antisemitic nature of such acts struggles to be recognized. We will strengthen training for magistrates in this area. And to ensure transparency and truth, I want precise monitoring of sentences and sanctions to be established. On this basis, the Government and Parliament will work to strengthen penalties for antisemitic and racist acts.

Our elected officials are the sentinels of the Republic and must remain so. Justice has been seized regarding statements made by some of them, and the judiciary is doing its work independently. For the future, I wish to see the establishment of mandatory ineligibility penalties for antisemitic, racist, and discriminatory acts or statements.

School, justice, elected officials—the mobilization must be general: that of the State, the Government, all public services, and everyone in the Republic. Ladies and gentlemen, there have been too many words; there have been too many deaths. The time has come for action and for an uncompromising patriotic and republican mobilization.

The mobilization that follows in the footsteps of Zola, Jaurès, Clemenceau, and Picquart, who defended Dreyfus. And on July 12 next year, for the first time, we will hold a national day of commemoration for Alfred Dreyfus.

The mobilization that honors Robert Badinter, his humanism, and his love of freedom.

That honors Marc Bloch—who will be inducted into the Panthéon on June 23—who liked to say that he claimed to be Jewish only in the face of an antisemite.

That recognizes itself in de Gaulle, who carried the Republic with him, far from the state antisemitism of Vichy, Pétain, and Laval.

The mobilization of all our contemporary struggles, from which we will yield nothing.

Ilan Halimi had his whole life ahead of him. The oak tree we plant here at the Élysée will not restore the years taken nor fill the void left behind. But through it, Ilan’s memory will live in the hearts and minds of all who pass through these halls—as a reminder and as a demand.

What does this tree tell us above all—ilan, meaning “tree” in Hebrew? That the place of this fight against antisemitism is here, because this fight is existential for France and for the Republic. For as Abbé Grégoire proclaimed when he affirmed the entry of Jews into French citizenship, “France without Jews is a tree without branches.”

And the Republic is unrootable, just like Ilan’s memory now rooted here. They may try to uproot them all; they will never exhaust the republican sap or the French spirit. In the end, there will always be one left—and one is enough. And let every French woman and every French man say it to themselves: They are that last person who carries the honor of all and must take up every fight.

To Ilan Halimi, to his family, to all victims of antisemitism, to all of you—I swear that in this struggle, the Republic will prevail. Because the Republic is you. It is us. It is, at every second, the person who fights for the dignity of another.

Yes—we will prevail.

Long live the Republic. Long live France.