Former French Prime Minister defends Papon and condemns Jews

The Euroepan Jewish Press reports that former French PM, Raymon Barree has accused the "Jewish Lobby” of making “a scapegoat” of Maurice Papon, the French senior official who signed deportation orders for hundreds of Jews in the Bordeaux region during WWII.

Historian and film director Claude Lanzmann accused Barre of being "an anti-Semite".

Papon, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 1998, organized the deportation of hundreds to Nazi extermination camps. The trial lasted six months and, as a result, Papon became the symbolize France’s collaboration with the Nazis.

Barre condemned those who said Papon should have resigned from his post.

“When you have essential responsibilities in a department, a region or even more at the national level, you don’t resign. You only resign when it is truly a question of major national interest.”

Barre's name may not be familiar to readers of this blog. Some, however, will remember his statement in 1980 after Palestinians set off a bomb in a Paris synagogue. Appearing on TV after the attack Barre revealed what some people said were his feelings about just how French French-Jews were:

“This appalling attack was intended to hit Jews on their way to the synagogue, it has hit innocent French people who happened to be in the Rue Copernic”.

In other words, Jews are not French.

During the interview with France Culture, Barre said his words were taken out of context.