French Jewish Leader Rips American Peers for Meeting French Extremist; U.S. Leaders Claim Faulty Inv

A leader of the French Jewish community has vilified 20 American Jewish officials who met recently with the head of an extremist rightwing party in France accused of racism and anti-Semitism.

The officials, including representatives of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL), the American Jewish Committee, World Jewish Congress and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, met with Jean Marie Le Pen, the leader of the National Front Party of France, on February 20.

They were attending a luncheon at Four Seasons restaurant in New York City as guests of Jacques Torczyner, a member of the World Zionist Organization Executive and veteran American Zionist leader. Some of the Jewish leaders said they did not know who the “guest of honor” was until they arrived at the restaurant. Many also said they attended not in their official capacities, but as private guests.

‘IRRESPONSIBLE AND DANGEROUS’

In France, Theo Klein, president of the European Jewish Congress and head of the Representative Council of Major French Jewish organizations, accused the officials of being “irresponsible and dangerous.” He rapped the leaders for neglecting to consult with or inform the French and West European Jewish communities of the meeting.

French, Belgian and Italian Jewish organizations have boycotted Le Pen, charging him with spreading racist and anti-Semitic ideology. Le Pen’s National Front party garnered 10 percent of the popular vote in the March 1986 legislative elections in France, which gave it 35 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, according to an ADL report on Le Pen, published last year.

So why were American Jewish leaders dining with Le Pen in one of New York’s finest restaurants? For Torczyner, the answer is simple.

“Mr. Le Pen has 15 percent of the vote in France. There are Jews among his voters. I have always invited people from the extreme left to the extreme right to meet with American Jews. I think it’s important to hear these points of view,” he said.

Torczyner added that Le Pen and his party support Israel in the French and European parliaments, and that Le Pen favors closing the Palestine Liberation Organization offices in France.

Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, said he was invited to the luncheon, but was not told Le Pen also would attend. Steinberg said Le Pen’s platform is “clearly racist.” But Le Pen claimed at the luncheon that he is not anti-Semitic, Steinberg said. Steinberg noted he agreed with Klein’s condemnation of Le Pen.

Others who attended gave similar accounts. George Gruen, AJCommittee director of Israel and Middle Eastern Affairs, said Torczyner told him some rightwing members of the French Parliament would also attend the luncheon, but gave no names.

“I didn’t know who would be there,” Gruen said. “I was not going as a delegate of the AJCommittee, I was invited as an individual.” Gruen said had he known Le Pen would be there, he would have checked his background with others in AJCommittee and probably sent someone more knowledgeable on European matters.

Gruen said Le Pen’s presentation was supportive of Israel and anti-PLO. “He denied he was anti-Semitic. He denied he sanctioned anti-Semitic publications… I don’t know if he was telling the truth or not,” Gruen said.

Torczyner said it was “not true” that the officials were not informed Le Pen would be at the luncheon, and noted that they could have left in protest. “They all stayed until the end. They all shook his hand. They all spoke to him,” Torczyner said.

Several who attended said they were told that the meeting and its contents would be off the record. But the story leaked to the French newspaper Le Figaro and the French Jewish community was outraged.

LONG-RUNNING ANIMOSITY

The French and West European Jews’ animosity for Le Pen goes back to his rise in popularity following the Paris student revolt in May 1968.

For many years, Le Pen subsisted politically on the fringe. He boasts frequently of fighting the Nazis in the French resistance, serving in the 1956 Suez campaign (where he claims he met and befriended Israelis) and then fighting with the French in Algiers to repress the popular revolt against French presence.

After Algiers he spent about 20 years with a minute extremist following. He lectured, ran a record firm which specialized in war songs and marches, and published books.

Following the student revolt, Le Pen founded the National Front, allied with neo-Nazi and neo-fascist elements. Some Le Pen followers were former Nazis, others vehemently anti-Semitic. Le Pen now prefers to disassociate himself from his early supporters.

He once told the JTA, “I am not to be held responsible, however, for what some of the people who supported me, generally without my formal approval, said.”

Charges that Le Pen and his party are racist stem from an anti-Arab platform. It is largely on this that he has gained some 10 to 15 percent of popular support in France, a good deal of it among the working class which competes with Arab and North African immigrants for jobs.

Some French political leaders, including former Health Minister Simone Veil, who is Jewish, refuse to form coalitions with Le Pen’s party.

SOME JEWISH SUPPORT

In the Jewish community, Le Pen’s anti-Arab diatribes attracted a small pocket of Jewish rightwing extremists. But the Jewish mainstream has denounced his racism reminiscent of Nazism.

Anti-Semitism within the party also troubles French Jews. The ADL report stated, “Since its establishment in 1981, the National Front’s daily newspaper Present…has become a major organ in France for publishing anti-Semitic attacks.”

Abraham Foxman, ADL associate national director, said the luncheon will lend Le Pen credibility abroad. “I was disappointed that I was not informed that this would be a meeting of 20 Jewish leaders,” Foxman said. Theo Klein “has a right to be angry,” Foxman added. “The meeting was not appropriate for leaders of the Jewish community.”