Several top rank members of President Valery Giscard d’Estaing’s own political party, Union for French Democracy, are openly disassociating themselves from his pro-Palestinian stand. They include party president Jean Lecanuet, Senator Andre Monteil, and the president of the Radical Party, a junior coalition member, Didier Bariani.
For three solid days, the party’s annual congress, held this year in Orleans, was marked by the delegates’ dissatisfaction with Giscard’s recent statements in Kuwait and Amman calling for Palestinian self-determination. Privately, party strategist said that the President’s stand could endanger his reelection next year. Giscard was elected in 1974 with less than a 300,000-vote majority over Socialist Francois Mitterrand. France’s 700,000 Jews are known for their heavy participation in all major elections.
Monteil told the, congress that “No French government should accept (Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir) Arafat’s presence in Paris before the PLO changes its charter and decides to recognize Israel.” Monteil called for the preservation of the current status of Jerusalem and said “it would be scandalous to hove Soviet soldiers guard the holy sepulcher.”
The Middle East issue is being widely discussed by all of France’s political parties with the exception of the Communists. The Gaullists, who generally support Giscard, have expressed “doubts” with the government’s Mideast policy and their leader, Jacques Chirac, last week conferred at length with Israel’s Ambassador Meir Roseanne.
The Socialists, currently busy with on internal fight over the party’s leadership have refrained from taking an open official stand. One of their leaders, however, Charles Hemu, mayor of the industrial city of Villeurbaine, yesterday refused to meet Giscard on an official visit in the area. The centrist parties, for which most Jews generally vote, are the most troubled by Giscard’s policy.
Political circles expect that the Mideast will continue to remain a major issue in the pre-electoral campaign. The Presidential elections are scheduled for April 1981 and the actual campaign will first begin next January.
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