Along with Léon Blum, Pierre Mendès France (1907-1982) was the only Jewish statesman ever allowed to serve as Prime Minister of France. Mendès France held that office from 1954 to 1955, following years in the wartime French Résistance. Like Blum, Mendès France was targeted for a multitude of anti-Semitic insults, which made him resolve not to run for President of France, fearing his candidacy would lead to a further upswing in Gallic hatred for Jews.
A startling new report by investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein suggests that the arrest of then-International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sexual assault charges in New York last May may have been a setup engineered by his political opponents.
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.