First, why does the heart of the matter have to be "France's complicated relationship with its Jewish citizens"? Was that the subtitle or something?

Even if that is the heart of the matter, then maybe dancing around it works. We see a France where Jewishness is salient but not all-important. I don't know anything about French Jews, but maybe the story is that there's no story. A movie about a French girl making a terrible mistake can plausibly focus on its human drama because the "Jewish question" doesn't exist.