Was François Mitterrand, who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, anti-Semitic? October 26 marks Mitterrand’s centenary but already earlier this year on a Gallic TV chat show, Prime Minister Manuel Valls reopened the debate by citing Mitterrand as an example of anti-Semitism in France. Authoritative biographies by historian Michel Winock and journalist…
French government officials are rarely known for their sense of poetic justice, but the French Jewish statesman Robert Badinter, born in 1928, is an exception to the rule. Former Minister of Justice in François Mitterrand’s government, Badinter published a Mitterrand-related memoir with Les éditions Fayard in March, with the wry title “Thorns and Roses” (Les…
François Mitterrand, who served as the President of France from 1981 to 1995, has long been known to have had an ambiguous relationship with the Nazis. As a mid-level civil servant in the wartime Vichy government, Mitterrand supported the Nazi puppet Marshal Pétain until 1943 and was duly awarded the “Ordre de la francisque gallique…
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