Baron Edouard de Rothschild, president of the Consistoire Central des Israelites de France et d’Algerie, today issued the following statement:
“Notwithstanding my desire to avoid polemics, it is impossible to leave unanswered the comment of the “unbiased specialist” published in your paper of March 28, in which he denies as untrue the affirmations in my statement of March 18, with regard to the Jewish question in Algeria.
“The specialist’s strongly worded declarations are erreneous and inaccurate.
“I never spoke of European Jews born in Metropolitan France and their descendants.
“The abrogation of the Cremieux Decree and its consequences for the descendants of the native Jews born on the French soil of Algeria are the only points at issue.
“The specialist is still unable to say how these Jews will be able to ask for naturalization.
“If it is going to be a real naturalization, the law of 1927 modified in 1935 prevents them from voting for parliament for five years.
“My statements, the accuracy of which I reaffirm, were obviously misread and their true import left entirely unanswered by the specialist.
“The Cremieux Decree is as much a part of the statutary fabric of France as any other law.
“The re-enactment of its cancellation, which was a part of the odious and retro-active Vichy Decrees, is a vicious discrimination made between men of European civilization, based uniquely upon their religious affiliation and constitutes a grave and permanent danger for the present and the future.”
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