France’s only Jewish minister running in yesterday’s nation-wide municipal elections. Culture Minister Jack Lang, was heavily defeated in Paris’ predominantly Jewish Third District.
Lang, a Socialist, had wooed the Jewish electorate, which seems, according to first poll studies, to have failed him. His competitor, Gaullist Jacques Dominati, known as pro-Israeli, did not specifically seem to court the district’s Jewish electorate.
ISRAEL’S MAIN FRIEND FACES RUN-OFF ELECTION
Israel’s main friend within the government, Interior Minister Gaston Defferre, failed to win in yesterday’s first round and will have to face a second run-off election next Sunday. It is the first time that Defferre, who has served as Marseilles Mayor since the end of the war, is in trouble.
A Socialist, he also counted on the area’s Jewish vote and even took time off during the campaign to pay a brief visit to Haifa, Israel, to which his city is twinned. Poll studies say it is too early to determine whether a majority of the city’s Jews voted for him in yesterday’s election, as they usually do.
Local observers say some Jews failed to support him because for the first time he headed a list which included representatives of the Communist Party.
HOW OTHER MINISTERS FARED
The government’s three other Jewish ministers, Socialists Robert Badinter and Laurent Fabius, and Communist Charles Fitermann, either did not run or did not head a list. Fabius, budget director, was elected municipal counsellor in a small city in the north of France.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Claude Cheysson, the man the Jewish community generally blames for what they see as an anti-Israeli turn in France’s Middle East policy, was elected in yesterday’s first round as Mayor of the small city in which he ran.
Yesterday’s electoral results, a major victory for the right and center-right opposition, seriously weakened Francois Mitterrand’s Socialist Administration, and many observers believe he will reshuffle his government sometime next month.
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.
