France’s highest award, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, was bestowed on two prominent French Jews. President Francois Mitterrand personally presented the decoration to Leo Hamon, a former Minister and law professor, and Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, dean of France’s advertising and broadcasting industries at ceremonies at the Elysee Palace last week.
Hamon, 76, is a professor of law at the Paris Sorbonne. He served as Minister of Information in the Administration of the late President Georges Pompidou and was a personal aide of Gen. Charles de Gaulle during World War II. He heads a pro-Socialist Gaullist party which backed Mitterrand in the 1981 Presidential elections.
Bleustein-Blanchet, 78, heads “Publicis,” the country’s largest privately-owned advertising agency. In the early 1920’s, he established radio broadcasting in France with the creation of the privately-owned Radio Paris. He is active in Jewish affairs and a generous contributor to local Jewish charities.
Among the several ranks of the Legion of Honor, Grand Officer is the highest and is only rarely awarded.
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