And why this innocuous Israeli comedy? “Because it was there,” she said. “We replaced it by ‘Rachel,’ ” a documentary made by Simone Bitton, a Moroccan-born, French-Israeli director who emigrated to Israel with her family as a child, served in the Israeli Army, became a pacifist and mostly lives in France. She also made a 2004 documentary, “Wall,” about the Israeli security barrier that cuts inside the occupied West Bank.

The ban was widely criticized by the French press, including the Catholic daily newspaper La Croix, which reminded readers that the Israeli cinema, “during these last years, offers the international public films of great quality, without compromise, and very critical” of Israeli policy and society, while the government of Israel continues to provide financing.

Le Monde called the boycott censorship and part of a dangerous trend, as various French cultural festivals consider banning Israeli performers and Western performers choose to boycott Israel. “The flotilla assault is hard to defend, but the boycott is an unacceptable answer,” the paper editorialized. “It is counterproductive. It helps to weaken Israeli voices and eyes who are the most uncompromising about their government. If there is one country in which artists explore with talent and lucidity their state, their society, their leaders and their politics, it is Israel.”

Utopia relented after an Israeli-Dutch director, Ludi Boeken, told the company he was withdrawing his film, “Saviors in the Night,” from its cinemas “in solidarity with the censored.” Mr. Boeken said that Israeli filmmakers and Israeli state financing for them were “under constant attack from the Israeli right.”

Finally on Thursday, the culture minister of France, Frédéric Mitterrand, wrote Ms. Faucon a belated but stinging letter, speaking of “my incomprehension and my disapproval” of the cancellation and noting that the chain received government subsidies to encourage diversity of programming. Mr. Mitterrand said that cinema “plays an essential role in invigorating democratic debate and that is why respect for the freedom of expression of artists cannot be limited, and the opinions that you assert must not stand in its way.”

Ms. Faucon answered Mr. Mitterrand and said that the protest “was a symbolic and limited gesture” and that Utopia had always planned to release the Israeli comedy at some point. She called “Rachel” “a film that corresponds perfectly to this mission of participating in democratic debate.”

Mr. Prasquier said that the French government was sensitive to manifestations of anti-Semitism and to the difficulty of separating them from criticism of Israel. “But there are trends in the society that are very unpleasant,” he said. He noted that during anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations last week, tear gas was used and “the slogans were extremely harsh.”

Unfortunately, he said, they no longer shock. “We are getting used to them as a society, and this is very bad.”