In connection with the visit of Gen. Giraud to the United States, the Jewish Labor Committee today issued a statement asking for the restoration of the Cremieux Decree which Gen. Giraud abrogated. The Committee termed the abrogation an illegal act “which deprives of French citizenship 120,000 French Algerian Jews born as Frenchmen.”
“The Jewish Labor Committee, representing 500,000 organized Jewish workers in the United States, appeals to the government of the United States to use its good offices with the present French administration in Algeria so that the latter will once and for all wipe out the shameful Fascist anti-Jewish laws of the Nazi-Vichy regime,” the statement reads. “American labor which is devoted soul and body to the cause of democracy and to winning our war against the Axis powers is vitally concerned in this matter. Now is the time to act; 120,000 Jewish citizens of France must at once regain all their constitutional rights.
“We are confident that the great American and British democracies will exert effective pressure upon the present French administration of Algeria and force it to adhere to the declaration of Four Freedoms proclaimed by President Roosevelt, Thus, the United Nations will once again reaffirm the basic principles of freedom and democracy before the entire world, particularly before the nations enslaved by the Axis.”
(French circles in New York today stated that Gen. Giraud is expected to announce a reversal of his position on the Cremieux Decree while in the United States.)
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