Israel’s President Shazar has invited President de Gaulle to make a state visit, it was learned here today. The invitation was contained in President Shazar’s telegram of congratulation to Gen. de Gaulle on his election. The invitation met a warm and positive response from French official sources, who said that Gen. de Gaulle would “attentively study” the possibilities of accepting the invitation.
Another development stemming from the election campaign was a complaint from some Jewish circles that there had been anti-Semitic innuendoes in some references made by Francois Mitterand, who lost in the runoff election for the presidency during his campaigning. A spokesman for the Socialist candidate vehemently denied the charge today.
Mitterand said during the campaign that he would “rather have a Communist worker vote for me than a member of the Rothschild house” and that Frenchmen should elect their president on a popular basis and not “have him appointed by the House of Rothschild or the elegant Jockey Club.”
Noting that Premier Georges Ponpidou had served as the Rothschild bank managing director for several years, the Mitterand spokesman said: “What we tried to stress is the regime’s association with high finance. We had no intention to throw the slightest shadow on the country’s Jewish population.” Other Socialist sources said that, if Mitterand had defeated Gen. de Gaulle, he would have named Pierre Mendes-France, one of France’s leading Jews and a former Premier, as his Premier.
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