Hachette also recalls a dictionary and examines all its school works

After three revision manuals, the Hachette publishing group recalled a dictionary qualifying «Jewish settlers » the victims of the attack of October 7, 2023 in Israel and will review all his school and extracurricular works, he announced on Friday. The dictionary, a Larousse for middle school students sold in a few hundred copies, contained the same sentence spotted in three extracurricular revision books on Tuesday by the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra), Hachette told AFP.

It says there: “In October 2023, following the deaths of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers during a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to strengthen its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, leading to a large-scale humanitarian crisis in the region.” The four works, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said in a press release. The group will launch “a complete verification of its school and extracurricular works and its dictionaries”he detailed.

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An internal investigation opened

The French number one publishing house, which came under the control of ultraconservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré at the end of 2023, has already opened an internal investigation “to determine the reasons which led to such an error”. He assures that he will put in place “a new reinforced verification process for all its future publications” in these collections. French President Emmanuel Macron judged on Wednesday “intolerable” that these baccalaureate revision works “falsify the facts” about the “Hamas terrorist and anti-Semitic attacks of October 7” 2023. “Revisionism has no place in the Republic”he added on the social network

On October 7, 2023, commandos from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack in Israel which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. In response, Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 70,900 people in two years, according to figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health, placed under the authority of Hamas, deemed reliable by the UN. A fragile truce has been in effect since October.