The French Ambassador to the United States, Charles Lucet, denounced tonight as “calumnious” suggestions that anti-Semitism could in any way affect the policies of the French Government. French President Charles de Gaulle has been under severe criticism for several months since he criticized Israel and the Jewish people at a press conference last year.
Speaking at a reception tendered him by 150 Jewish leaders of the American Friends of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, the envoy also said that Israel’s right to existence “must be recognized as a fact.” He insisted that the fact that France, “in conformity with its historical tradition, also has good relations with the Arab states, should in no way offend the State of Israel.” He added he was sure it did not. He commented that France had “contributed to a large extent to the development, progress and security of the young state.”
Prof. Rene Cassin, honorary head of the French Council of State, told the reception that difficulties and misunderstandings of a “transitory nature” should not affect “what is basic and permanent’ in the attitudes of one people toward another. He is president of the Alliance.
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