President Georges Pompidou expressed today “horror and indignation at terrorism and the taking of hostages,” but said that “terrorism can be eliminated only by eliminating the causes which created it.” The French President, who was addressing a press conference here this afternoon, said “that all of us who have lived under Nazi occupation and have known their methods are horrified by the taking of hostages the worst form which terrorism can take.”
Pompidou stressed that “retaliations follow terrorism and are followed in turn by new acts of terror, thus provoking a terrible escalation.” Observers here interpreted Pompidou’s declaration on the Middle East and terrorism as indicating that French policy has remained unchanged.
Turning to the case of former German collaborator Paul Touvier to whom he recently granted a Presidential pardon, Pompidou said, “this was not to excuse his crimes but to help us forget the past.” Touvier was sentenced to death in absentia for having participated in the murder of French resistance fighters and in the deportation of thousands of Jews. For both juridical and moral reasons, Pompidou excluded any possibility of reversing his decision.
“As a man who was himself denounced to the Gestapo and who had two assassination attempts made against him by OAS terrorists (at the time of the Algerian war) I feel entitled to say. let us forget the past.’ Pompidou said. The President added that Touvier’s death sentence has, in any event, been lifted by normal juridical processes.
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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.
