Contrary to many predictions, no “Jewish vote” materialized in yesterday’s municipal elections here in which several Jewish candidates were defeated in heavily Jewish districts while other Jews were elected or placed favorably for the run-offs to be held March 20. The results are being studied carefully because the Jewish vote was expected to be a factor since the Abu Daoud affair in January.
But the consensus today is that Paris Jews voted according to their personal preference rather than as a bloc. There were Jewish candidates on all three major party lists–the pro-Giscard faction, the pro-Chirac Gaullists and the Socialist-Communist opposition.
Despite the high feelings over a district court’s release of Palestinian terrorist Abu Daoud whose extradition was sought by Israel and West Germany for the 1972 Munich massacre, supporters of President Valery Giscard d’Estaing did not fare badly in districts heavily populated by Jews.
The Chirac-Gaullist list headed by Mrs. Nicole Chouraqui, who is Jewish, was decisively defeated in the old Jewish district by pro-Giscard candidate Jacques Dominati, a non-Jew who is secretary general of the Independent Republican Party. Another Jew, lawyer Paul Garcon, lost to the pro-Chirac forces in his home district.
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