PARIS — At first, the French minister of culture welcomed the book with enthusiasm.

“To you who like French history, to you who like to see it revitalized, I warmly recommend you to read the 2018 edition of the National Commemorations,” the minister, Françoise Nyssen, wrote in the foreword of the annual project that celebrates notable events and figures.

“I am sure that it will bring you,” she added, “a great pleasure and beautiful emotions!”

What followed was nothing close.

The 2018 edition of the commemorations included the 150th anniversary of the birth of the anti-Semitic and far-right author Charles Maurras. That led many to express outrage online over the weekend.

“To commemorate is to pay homage,” Frédéric Potier, the leader of a French government delegation against racism and anti-Semitism, wrote on Twitter. “Maurras, an anti-Semitic author of the far-right, has no place in the National Commemorations of 2018.”