French public opinion, leaning toward Israel since the Persian Gulf war started a week ago, veered sharply in Israel’s favor after it became the target of Iraqi missile attacks.
According to the latest, as yet unpublished polls, 85 percent of French people express sympathy and support for Israel. Much of that sympathy stems from Israel’s restraint so far from reprisal attacks on Iraq.
The empathy marks a sharp change of climate between the two nations. Israel’s image has until just recently suffered badly here since the intifada began three years ago and French television was filled with pictures of Israeli soldiers firing on Palestinian rock-throwers.
The change of national sentiment was reflected Tuesday night when all radio and television channels interrupted their programs to broadcast long, sympathetic reports of the havoc wrought by the latest Iraqi missile attack in the Tel Aviv area.
“It was not just news, it was reported with the warmth and sympathy generally reserved for a national catastrophe,” a senior French editor told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The change is reflected in the slant in newspaper headlines and stories and the fact that Jewish leaders and pro-Israel personalities are getting more invitations than ever to appear on television talk shows.
Dozens of leading political figures asked to join a “solidarity trip” to Israel organized by CRIF, the umbrella organization of French Jewry.
About 20 members of the Chamber of Deputies, wearing the traditional tricolor scarves, called on the Israeli Embassy on Tuesday.
President Francois Mitterrand received French Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk at the Elysee Palace on Tuesday, following a request from CRIF leader Jean Kahn.
Nevertheless, the swing in popular opinion toward Israel has not retarded the influence of the growing “peace camp,” an ad hoc grouping of left-wing intellectuals, trade union leaders and French people of Arab descent.
Hundreds and sometimes thousands gather daily in Paris and other large cities demanding the government return to its earlier peace plan, which linked a solution of the Iraqi-Kuwait dispute with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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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.
