PARIS — Here’s some news you might find surprising: By and large, the French like Jews.

Yes, there have been despicable anti-Semitic crimes here, and there are enduring stereotypes. But 85 percent of the French have a favorable view of Jews, the same as the British do, according to the Pew Research Center. Since 1990, France’s national human rights commission has annually ranked Jews as the one of the country’s most accepted minorities. In polls, most French people say the state should vigorously combat anti-Semitism.

That’s little solace to the family of Mireille Knoll, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who was stabbed to death last month in her Paris apartment in an apparent hate crime. A year earlier, a 66-year-old woman in the same arrondissement was beaten and thrown off her third-floor balcony. There were other anti-Semitic murders in the years before that.

But this isn’t Vichy. Tolerance toward Jews, measured by the human rights commission, has been increasing. And unlike in the 1940s, the French government is trying to protect its citizens.

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and some in the foreign press ponder whether French Jews should simply flee the country, they’re asking the wrong question. Far more relevant is this one: What is the French government doing to combat dangerous anti-Semitism in a small part of the population?