Students Protest French Embargo at Embassy in London, Amsterdam Consulate

A group of 200 students, including several visiting French collegians, demonstrated for an hour today in front of the French Embassy here in protest against French President Charles de Gaulle’s action in clamping an embargo on shipments of weapons and spare parts to Israel. (The demonstration was organized by the Inter-University Jewish Federation and was joined by the Ad Hoc Committee for Peace in the Middle East.

At the end of the demonstration, a letter of protest was handed to Embassy officials by Allan Baker, federation chairman, who also gave the officials a similar message from the Union of German Students, which was rejected by the French Post Office. The cable then was re-routed to London and to the Federation. Embassy officials said the protests would be given to the French Ambassador who would decide on whether to transmit it to his Government. The placards carried by the demonstrating students denounced Gen. de Gaulle but not France.

Two hundred Jewish students and members of Dutch Jewish youth organizations marched to the French Consulate in Amsterdam today in a similar protest. A consulate official refused to admit a delegation or accept a letter of protest. The students affixed their letter to the wall of the Consulate building and gave a copy to the press.

In Geneva, the Swiss-Israel Association adopted a resolution condemning President de Gaulle’s embargo as “a unilateral sanction which cannot achieve its alleged purpose of pacification in the Middle East because other powers, including France, continue to deliver arms to the Arab states.”