Bernard Kouchner, the previous foreign minister of France, said that former president Nicolas Sarkozy was widely disliked because of his Jewish origins. Kouchner made the assertion during an interview Tuesday for RMC radio in responding to the interviewer’s question about Kouchner’s observations about Sarkozy in Kouchner’s newly published book, “Crossed Memories.” In the book, which…
Despite its claim as une ville fleurie (city of flowers), Drancy is a dim and dreary northern suburb of Paris. This was fitting, however: President François Hollande was there in late September to address the town’s grim role as the transit camp for French and foreign Jews to Auschwitz, and the burden this past places…
“I’m not criticizing, but simply making an observation” — “Je ne critique pas, je constate” — is a favorite rhetorical dagger of the French. It was unsheathed on Monday when CRIF, the Council of Representative Jewish Institutions in France, acknowledged Francois Hollande’s victory over Nicolas Sarkozy in a press release. Under the (awkward) title, “In…
Several years from now, historians may recount a conversation at the Elysée Palace, the residence of France’s president. While watching the returns of the first round of the presidential elections on Sunday night, Nicolas Sarkozy shrugs: “It’s a rebellion.” And an adviser, in turn, replies, “No, Monsieur le Président, c’est une revolution.” Or they may…
Now that France’s nightmare seems to be ending, its many interpretations have begun. As I write, a Frenchman of Algerian descent has claimed responsibility for the horrific murders of French soldiers and a teacher and children at a local Sephardic Jewish school. He identified himself as a member of Al Qaeda, reportedly traveled to Pakistan…
When Arié Bensemhoun, a Jewish community leader in Toulouse, woke up Tuesday morning, he thought for a moment that the horrific shooting of three children and a rabbi at a local Jewish school might have been just a bad dream. Like others in the close-knit Jewish community in the southern French city, Bensemhoun said he…
We all know politics makes for odd bedfellows. Just how odd, though, was revealed in this morning’s news. The presidential candidacy of Marine Le Pen, leader of the extreme right wing Front National, has just been made possible by a French Israeli citizen. In order to run for president in France, an individual must secure…
Harvey Weinstein will be joining Steven Spielberg and Jerry Lewis in the rarified and very small club of Jewish American filmmakers awarded France’s highest cultural distinction, the Legion of Honor. Although Weinstein’s big push of the French-made film “The Artist” to Oscar glory late last month has him in the headlines lately, it was already…
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