French President Emmanuel Macron expressed shock Wednesday over the discovery that a high school textbook used to prepare students for national exams misrepresented the October 7 Hamas terror attack, describing its victims as “Jewish settlers.”
The textbook, published by the well-known French educational publisher Hachette, stated that “on October 7, in response to the deaths of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to intensify its economic isolation of Gaza and to invade large parts of it, resulting in a major humanitarian crisis throughout the region.” The phrasing has appeared in the book since 2024.
The claim was flagged by LICRA, the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism, which posted a photo of the textbook excerpt on social media platform X. “Is it too much to ask a prominent publisher to avoid spreading confused theories aimed at denying a tragedy?” the group wrote.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), also condemned the passage and said he had personally spoken with Hachette CEO Arnaud Lagardère. “I conveyed the community’s outrage over the text. It’s a distortion of history and an unacceptable attempt to legitimize Hamas terror,” he said. “The book ignores the fact that Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization. There is no place for hatred in school materials.”
Macron emphasized that the book was not an official publication of France’s Ministry of Education but nonetheless sharply criticized the content. “Passages from a non-official exam preparation book define the victims of October 7, 2023, as ‘Jewish settlers.’ This is a serious and unacceptable act. The definition is a falsification of the facts and an insult to the dignity of terror victims. No textbook should present such a distorted perspective,” he said.
French Education Minister Édouard Geffray also condemned the passage, noting that while the book was not officially endorsed by the ministry, Hachette is one of France’s most widely used educational publishers, distributing tens of thousands of copies.
Following the public outcry, Hachette issued an apology and announced it would withdraw all sold and unsold copies of the book from stores and libraries and destroy them. “Hachette acknowledges the controversy surrounding the textbook and apologizes for the incorrect content on the referenced page,” the publisher said in a statement. “The book will no longer be sold until it has been reviewed and corrected. An internal investigation is already underway to determine how such an error was published.”
Lagardère, the publishing group’s CEO, also issued a personal apology. “I want to personally apologize to everyone rightly offended by this publication,” he wrote. “I also apologize to teachers, parents, and students. Hachette will implement stricter editorial oversight to ensure such incidents do not happen again.”