A Few Jews Supporting Le Pen in Bid for French Presidency

Right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who publicly dismissed the Holocaust a few months ago as a mere “historic detail,” received a kiss on the cheek and a bouquet of flowers from “some of his Jewish backers” Sunday night at the close of his National Front party’s convention in Nice.

The kiss and the flowers were bestowed by a young Jewish woman whose identity was not revealed. The scene was broadcast live on several French television channels. Reporters in Nice told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they checked the woman’s identity and confirmed she belonged to a local Jewish family.

Earlier, Le Pen formally announced his candidacy for president of France in the national elections scheduled for May. Surrounded by some 3,000 supporters and hundreds of French flags, he disclosed the names of 60 prominent personalities who have formed a committee in support of his presidential bid.

Two of them are Jews, Col. Jean-Charles Bloch and Robert Hemmerdinger, described as president and vice president respectively of “The National Committee of French Jews.” The committee, set up by Le Pen’s party, claims to represent an unspecified number of Jews who support the right-wing nationalist leader, often accused of anti-Semitism.

Block is a retired army officer who saw service in Indochina and North Africa. Hemmerdinger, a Paris businessman, has long been active on Le Pen’s behalf.

BLAMES LEFT-WING PRESS

During his main address to the convention, Le Pen denied he was anti-Semitic and blamed the “left-wing press (for) trying to make out of me something which I am not.”

But a substantial majority of French Jews apparently are not convinced.

His flippant characterization of the Holocaust, during a Radio Luxembourg interview last October, infuriated Jews and non-Jews alike. Le Pen was forced to cancel an appearance at the British Conservative Party convention in November — to which he had been invited by a Jewish member.

Two weeks ago, a self-proclaimed commando group of Jewish youths raided the offices of National Hebdo, a relatively obscure Paris weekly supporting Le Pen’s presidential ambitions. They left leaflets declaring they would not “tolerate anti-Semitic propaganda of a hoodlum like Jean-Marie Le Pen.”

According to the latest public opinion polls, Le Pen would win between 8 and 9 percent of the popular vote in the upcoming elections. It would not put him in the Elysee Palace, political observers noted, but could give the National Front a swing vote in the event of a close race between the center-right party of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and the Socialists led by incumbent President Francois Mitterrand.