French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann reiterated last night France’s stand that a solution to the Middle East conflict can come only through the full application of the Security Council’s Resolution 242. Schumann, who was addressing the Senate, said that many foreign governments, including that of the United States, now interpret the resolution as calling for Israel’s withdrawal from all the occupied territories.
Schumann, who was replying to a question from Independent Senator Pierre Marcilhacy, said that “should war between Israel and Egypt break out anew, we would have to watch powerlessly as two super-armed nations, one armed by the United States and the other by the Soviet Union, would fight it out.” The Foreign Minister stressed that it was in order to avoid such an eventuality that France had been pressing for the application of the Security Council’s resolution.
Marcilhacy had in his question warned the French government of “the terrible responsibility which it will have to bear if it would permit the Arab armies to invade Israel.” The Senator, a former Presidential candidate, said “the blood of the Jewish nation would then be on our heads, and I speak as a practicing Christian.”
Contrary to foreign affairs debates in previous years, no Senator, with the exception of Marcilhacy, this year mentioned Israel and the Middle East conflict. The French Senate has a non-Gaulliat majority consisting mainly of pro-Israeli rep-
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