France’s highest award, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, was bestowed on two prominent French Jews. President Francois Mitterrand personally presented the decoration to Leo Hamon, a former Minister and law professor, and Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, dean of France’s advertising and broadcasting industries at ceremonies at the Elysee Palace last week.
Hamon, 76, is a professor of law at the Paris Sorbonne. He served as Minister of Information in the Administration of the late President Georges Pompidou and was a personal aide of Gen. Charles de Gaulle during World War II. He heads a pro-Socialist Gaullist party which backed Mitterrand in the 1981 Presidential elections.
Bleustein-Blanchet, 78, heads “Publicis,” the country’s largest privately-owned advertising agency. In the early 1920’s, he established radio broadcasting in France with the creation of the privately-owned Radio Paris. He is active in Jewish affairs and a generous contributor to local Jewish charities.
Among the several ranks of the Legion of Honor, Grand Officer is the highest and is only rarely awarded.
REMINDER: There will be no Daily News Bulletin dated October 19, Succoth holiday.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
