Prominent French Jew Gets High Post

Robert Badinter has been appointed President of France’s Constitutional Council, one of the country’s highest legal bodies, in some way the equivalent of the Supreme Court. He replaces in this post Daniel Mayer who resigned the Presidency but remains a member of the Council. Both Badinter and Mayer have been active in Jewish communal organizations.

Badinter, 57, who served until his resignation last Wednesday as Minister of Justice, is a former member of the executive committee of the Fond Social Juif Unifie and has served on the Board of Elizabeth Badinter, a writer and the daughter of Marcel Blaustein-Blanchet who is a prominent French Jewish philanthropist.

As a Minister, Badinter will be remembered as the man who abolished capital punishment and liberalized France’s 200-year-old criminal code. A personal friend of President Francois Mitterrand, he will head the nine-member Council which rules on basic constitutional matters. In spite of his official functions, he has remained active in campaigning for the rights of Soviet Jews and especially for Anatoly Shcharansky’s liberation.

Mayer, 77, is the former president of the ORT International Executive and a former president of the League for the Rights of Man. Active in the French anti-Nazi resistance, he was a member of several French post-war governments and also served from 1953 to 1957 as President of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Commission.

Both Badinter and Mayer have often visited Israel and have shown their personal commitment to the Jewish State. Badinter’s appointment is for nine years, starting March 5.