Mme. Simone Veil, France’s Minister of Health, is unusual in many ways. She is the first–and only–woman to reach Cabinet rank in France. She is the only Jew with full ministerial responsibilities. She is a former Auschwitz inmate with the number 78651 tattooed on her forearm.
Despite these facts of her life, which some might consider handicaps to high public office, Mme, Veil has become France’s most popular political figure. Recent public opinion polls gave her a six percent edge over Premier Jacques Chirac and two percent over opposition leader Francois Mitterand.
In an exclusive interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week, before she left for Israel on a five-day official visit at the invitation of the Israeli government, Mme, Veil spoke about what it was like to be a woman Cabinet minister, a Jew with strong sentimental ties to Israel and a member of a government whose attitude toward Israel, while more friendly than in the recent past, is still ambiguous toward the Middle East and which has recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as a representative body. Mme, Veil has been a frequent visitor to Israel in “a private capacity.” Her three sons have all visited Israel and have studied Hebrew at ulpanim there.
She joined the government last summer after the Franco-Israel rift on the arms embargo was mended, although Israeli diplomats and many Jewish organizations in France are still not happy with the government’s Mideast policy. The JTA asked her if she felt more a minister or more a Jew.
NO QUESTION OF DOUBLE ALLEGIANCE
Mme, Veil; There is no, there can be no such problem. I am French and a member of the French government. Emotionally I feel close to Israel and to Jerusalem both as a Jew and as a former deportee but there can be no question of a double allegiance. Israel is something special to me and to my family but there is a clear distinctive line between sentimental involvement and concrete political factors.
JTA; Today it might be easy to reconcile sentiments and reason, but a few years ago?
Mme. Veil; No, it is never easy but it has to be done. This problem is not specific to the Jews. I remember a friend of mine in my native city of Nice who was an Italian married to a Frenchman. When Italy invaded France during the war, stabbing her in the back, she, my friend, had to choose her options and make up her mind on what side she was. It was not easy, but she did it. I think she made the right choice. The important thing is to try and remain objective and impartial and judge matters on their merit. I think that this can nearly always be done. (With a smile) I don’t know how Dr. Kissinger feels about this but as far as I am concerned there can be no problem in what direction my duties and responsibilities lie.
Mme, Veil does not like to speak about her concentration camp experience. Sometimes the subject crops up unexpectedly.
During the debate in the French National Assembly last fall on her bill legalizing abortion in France, a Deputy shouted at her; “You want to send our unborn children to the cremation ovens.” Mme. Veil, whose parents and brother died in Auschwitz, slumped forward in her chair and her eyes filled with tears.
The Assembly President asked her if she wanted a recess but she replied, coolly, “No, this will not be necessary,” and the debate continued. Late in the night, when the vote was taken she had won and France became the first Catholic country to legalize abortion.
ASSIMILATED FAMILY BACKGROUND
Simone Veil was born to an assimilated Jewish middle class family. Her father, Andre Jacob, was an architect; her mother Yvonne Steinmetz. a chemist, Old friends recall that the family was assimilated to such a degree that her brother, who was later to die at Auschwitz, was not circumcised, and no Jewish holidays were observed.
In spite of their assimilation, the family declared itself Jewish at the time of the Nazi occupation. Mme. Veil was arrested in 1944 by a German patrol. Her parents, her brother and sister were arrested two days later. They were all deported to Auschwitz and only the two daughters survived.
After the war she returned to France and studied law at the Sorbonne in Paris where she met her husband, Antoine Veil, today president of African Air Lines, a state-owned company and a senior civil servant. She worked as a magistrate from her graduation until she was appointed to the Cabinet last summer by President Valery Giscard d’Estaing.
Mme. Veil is a member of no political party and her appointment came as a surprise. Many thought that Giscard d’Estaing was mainly interested in keeping his election promise to appoint a woman to Cabinet rank if elected. He chose Mme. Veil as fitting the role, probably unaware at the time, that one year later she would emerge as France’s main political personality with, observers say, ambitions of her own.
Jewish observers fear, however, that even if she makes good and eventually replaces Chirac as Prime Minister, they will have little additional influence in French government circles.
Always distant from organized Jewish life, Mme, Veil has drawn even further away since her appointment as minister. The only appearance she made at a Jewish gathering was at a recent meeting of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, considered here as the most French of Jewish organizations and the least involved with Israel and Zionism. This does not prevent her youngest son, Jean Michel, from planning to revisit Israel and perhaps settle there one day.
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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.
