French Police are actively looking for several militant Leftist students who last week attacked and injured the former French Cabinet Minister Jacques Soustelle, on the University of Caen campus. French police sources disclosed to day that they soon expect to arrest several members of extremist Leftist organizations which are active on the Caen campus.
Soustelle was due to give an address on Israel. Shortly before his arrival. Leftist students occupied the hall in which the conference was due to be held. Upon Soustelle’s arrival a fight broke out and the former Minister was attacked. He was taken to a hospital for treatment of his injuries. Soustelle is well known for his pro-Israeli views. He is also a contested political personality in France. For several years he lived in exile and was sought by the French police for having opposed President Charles De Gaulle’s Algerian policy and joined the platters against the General in North Africa.
For this, Soustelle is particularly hated by the extreme French Left and it is difficult to say if the attack was motivated by his pro-Israeli position, by his French political past, or by both. The president of the Friendship Israel-France Association, Senator Andre Monteuil, protested against the ” intolerable fact that armed bands can attack savagely a lecturer of Mr. Souctelle’s stature, and a man who was invited to the campus by the university’s law students.”
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