Now 51, Mr. Attal says that — worryingly, and without his consent — other people have started pointing out his Jewishness, or seeing it as central to his identity. Journalists have lately described him as Franco-Israeli, “ because they can’t say I’m a Jew,” he tells me.

At dinner parties, he says he’s found himself the “designated Jew,” called upon to justify actions by Israel’s government. “They said to me, ‘How you irritate us,’ and I asked them, ‘Who’s the you? Who’s the ‘us?’ ”

It’s a very French concern. Here, pointing out someone’s religion or ethnicity can come across as questioning whether they’re fully French. Jews are especially sensitive to this; they remember that “Juif” was stamped across people’s passports during World War II, a first step before they were deported and killed. (The movie’s French title, “Ils sont partout” — they are everywhere — is a reference to the collaborationist newspaper Je Suis Partout.)

And yet, while anti-Semitic acts have become more common, so has tolerance of Jews. (Racist acts are probably carried out by a small segment of the population, a government report says.) In a 2014 Pew poll, 89 percent of French people said they had a favorable view of Jews, more than in any other European country surveyed. When a Jewish social center in my Paris neighborhood was burned and covered in anti-Semitic graffiti, both the prime minister and the mayor came and made speeches. (It later turned out that a disgruntled Jewish man had done it.) Even the far-right National Front can’t get away with espousing anti-Semitism anymore — though its supporters are less circumspect.

One of the few places anti-Semitism really thrives in France is among some Muslims. In one French poll, 44 percent said there was a “global Zionist conspiracy,” and 67 percent said that Jews had too much economic power. Still, 85 percent of Muslims said that when they discover that someone is Jewish, “I do not care.” Most Muslims have bigger problems: They are themselves one of France’s least accepted minority groups.

Nevertheless, Jewish stereotypes can have tragic consequences. Members of the gang that kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered 23-year-old Ilan Halimi in 2006 were surprised to find out that Mr. Halimi’s family, though Jewish, wasn’t wealthy. Their leader, the son of immigrants from the Ivory Coast, demanded a ransom from a French rabbi instead.