A square in central Paris was named this week in honor of Rene Cassin, a former president of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the man who wrote, at Eleanor Roosevelt’s request, the International Declaration of the Rights of Man. Cassin, a former aide to Gen. Charles de Gaulle who served as Minister of Justice in France’s Free French. London-based government, during the war, died in 1976 at the age of 89.
The square which now bears his name is in the heart of Paris, near the city’s main cultural area, the Centre Beaubourg. Mayor Jacques Chirac, who inaugurated the square and the newly planted park, recalled Cassin’s wartime career.
He was one of the first to join de Gaulle in London in June 1940. It was at de Gaulle’s request that he headed the Alliance and started reorganizing it in 1943 after de Gaulle stressed the importance which he attached to its cultural and educational activities.
The President of France’s Constitutional Council, Daniel Mayer, the Chancellor of the Order of the Liberation General Jean Simon, former Senate President Gaston de Monerville, and the Alliance’s current president, Prof. Ady Steg, attended the inauguration ceremony.
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