French Jews breathed a sigh of relief as far right candidate Marine Le Pen was roundly defeated by centrist Emmanuel Macron in the second and final round of the country’s presidential election on Sunday.

But experts warned that the community still faces tough decisions over its long-term future.

Projections after the polls closed showed Mr. Macron with a comfortable 65 percent of the vote.

Mr. Macron’s victory on Sunday brought some temporary respite to French Jews, experts told The Algemeiner.

“French Jews didn’t want Le Pen to win, so they are happy with that,” said Dr. Dov Maimon, the head of the Europe Desk at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. “Maybe 5 or 10 percent voted for her, but 90 percent were against her with good reason.”

While the immediate threats that would have been posed by a National Front victory have abated — among them a prohibition on the wearing of kippot in public places, measures against Jewish ritual slaughter, and a ban on dual nationality that would have harshly impacted French Jews in Israel — the general pessimism about the community’s long-term future remains.

“Macron is a supporter of multiculturalism, which in this case means more power for the Muslim community,” Dr. Maimon observed. “Seventy percent of French Muslims say they don’t like Jews.”

A 2014 poll conducted by CRIF found that over 70 percent of French Muslims believed that Jews “had too much power” over the nation’s media and financial system.

Dr. Maimon emphasized that the deeper dilemmas faced by French Jews would not be resolved by a single election. As well as antisemitism and the preservation of Jewish identity, he said, French Jews were worried about the economy, a decline in prosperity and, most of all, the education of the younger generation.

This story originated at www.algemeiner.com