A four-member French Jewish delegation led by Alain de Rothschild, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations (CRIF) met today with Premier Raymond Barre to protest against President Valery Giscard d’Estaing’s one-sided declarations on the Middle East. The delegation, and a communique issued by the CRIF, stressed Giscard’s failure to mention in his recent Kuwaiti declaration Israel’s right to exist and its need for safe and recognized borders.
The delegation and the communique expressed the Jewish community’s “fears and growing concern” regarding France’s policy. Rothschild said that France’s 700,000 Jews are “alarmed by the President’s mention of Palestinian rights without even mentioning those of Israel.”
The CRIF communique also deplored France’s lack of support for the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty and lack of recognition of Israel’s attempt to find a solution to the Palestinian problem within the frame-work of the Camp David accords.
Giscard last Monday in a joint communique with Kuwait stressed the Palestinian “right to self-determination” and recognized that “theirs is not a refugee problem” but one which he implied needs political solutions. Giscard arrived in Jordan-today on the fifth leg of his current tour of Arab states.
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