Gaston Defferre, a veteran politician and one of Israel’s oldest and staunchest friends, died here Wednesday at the age of 75. He was the Mayor of Marseilles for 30 years, had been a Minister in a dozen different governments and had run for the Presidency in 1969 against Georges Pompidou.
During his service in the war-time anti-Nazi resistance movement and in all of his successive posts, Defferre, who was not Jewish, remained an outspoken friend of the Jewish people and of Israel. As Mayor of Marseilles, he twinned his city with Haifa and visited that port city on more than a dozen occasions.
Respected by all of France’s political parties and factions, he was always in the forefront in the fight for persecuted Jews, whether in the Soviet Union or in Syria. Israel’s Ambassador to France, Ovadia Soffer, said “his death will be a grievous loss to the cause of justice and human rights.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
