Protection of ethnic and religious minorities is enshrined in the European Human Rights Convention, UN Convention of Human Rights and in EU Treaties.

That is why, our two organizations – COJEP International and EMISCO - have read with great concern the recent statement coming out of the official France, regarding banning the word Shoah and instead use the word annihilation.

According to the article of Claude Lanzmann in Le Monde of 30th August 2011, in its Official Gazette nr.7 of September 2010, the French Ministry of National Education emphasized the need to remove the word "Shoah" from educational textbooks.

We consider this unfortunate proposal in great contrast to the earlier statement by President Sarkozy that every Jewish child murdered in Shoah, be sponsored by a French high school pupil of the same age.

We do not know the reasons and causes behind this action, but we condemn in the strongest terms, the official French efforts to rename the most tragic and inhumane chapter of our recent history. Jewish communities have every right to call the holocaust as Shoah, without an outside interference or renaming.

COJEP and EMISCO, which work for the integration of Muslim communities in Europe, also want to extent our strongest support to the European Jewish communities and assure them that we take Anti-Semitism in today's Europe very seriously and a real nuisance. It must be dealt with strongly and without prejudice, no matter who commits it. We also wish to emphasize that Islamophobia is getting a permanent foothold in Europe and the progressive Jewish and Muslim communities should make a joint front to confront these two evils of our societies.