The Mayor of Nice and the Mayor of Nathanya criticized French Middle East policies today. Mayor Oved Ben Ami, of the Israeli town, is here as the guest of Mayor Jacques Medicin. Addressing a reception in Mayor Ben Ami’s honor, the French official declared that “95 percent of the Frenchmen in the south of France retain their friendship and warm regard for Israel, despite what is going on in Paris.” He added that “Ultimately the genuine friendship of Frenchmen for Israel will assert itself.”
Mr. Ben Ami responded by recalling the halcyon days of Franco-Israeli friendship in the mid fifties when Premier Guy Mollet along with Prime Minister Anthony Eden, of Britain, joined Israel in the Suez campaign. “Now France tells us to retreat from some of the liberated territories.” Mr. Ben Ami said, “We can no more abandon these territories than France could abandon Alsace Lorraine.” He charged the government of President Georges Pompidou with trying to drive a wedge between Israel and diaspora Jewry which, he claimed “no force on earth can separate.”
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