The Fighting French here today formulated their opposition to Gen. Giraud’s abrogation of the Cremieux decree in an article written by Capt. Pierre Bloch, an army officer attached to Gen. de Gaulle’s headquarters in London, which will be published on Sunday in their organ La Marseillaise.
“It is untrue to say that the abrogation of the Cremieux decree has established equality between Moslem and Jewish natives,” the article says, “On the contrary, this abrogation has created an inferior situation for the Jewish native in regard to the Moslem native. Today, several months after the landing of the liberators, the position of Algerian Jews has become worse. Gen. Giraud goes further than the Vichy government. By a play of words and under the pretext of no racial distinction, he declares the abrogation of the Cremieux decree.
“Thus the Jews, hit by the Vichy government, no longer have a political status (which in wartime is not very important), but they also lose their French status. Furthermore, they now find themselves deprived of citizenship. Algerian Jews who had been subject to French civil law for three generations now find themselves once more governed by their Mosaic and personal statutes. In their business Jews are now wholly dependent on the bribunal of the Rabbi,” the article points out, adding that they have less rights than ever before.
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.
