French Newspaper in New York Mum on Giraud’s Abrogation of Cremieux Decree

French-Jewish circles here today criticized a statement made by Maurice Stern, a member of the board of the Jewish Colonization Association, approving Gen. Giraud’s policy regarding the Jews in Algeria and declaring that “Gen. Giraud is the only European who, after the armistice, gave factual proof of his determination to destroy the Nazi anti-Jewish ideology.”

Mr. Stern made this statement in the French newspaper “Pour La Victoire” which is published in New York. The newspaper itself has so far refrained from taking any stand on Gen. Giraud’s abrogation of the Cremieux decree which has been a subject of discussion in the general press and among Frenchmen in the United State: An inquiry addressed to Madame Genevieve Tabouis, one of the editors of paper, asking her attitude on this issue, in which American Jewish groups are interested, elicited no reply.

Resentment is also expressed in French-Jewish circles at the fact that Andre Levy, one of the owners of the Unis Prix Department stores in Paris, who arrived here from Algeria recently, is engaged in an attempt to whitewash Gen. Giraud and Marcel Peyrouton by explaining away the abrogation of the Cremieux decree. He is canvassing Jewish leaders in order to mitigate the adverse reaction to the annulment of the decree.