The French minister of the interior and a candidate for next year's presidential elections in France, Nicolas Sarkozy, has met with Jewish leaders in New York. Sarkozy later attended memorial events commemorating the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The meeting marked the first time a major French presidential candidate has publicly cultivated relations with the American Jewish community before an election, and it came as French parties are preparing to select their candidates for the presidential election in April. For the past three years, since the outbursts of anti-Semitism in France caught the attention of Americans, president Chirac and his foreign ministers have touched base regularly with Jewish groups in New York, Washington, and Paris. "I am a friend of America. I am a friend of Israel," Sarkozy, also head of the conservative UMP party, said. The World Jewish Congress was represented by at the meeting by Israel Singer, chairman of the WJC Policy Council.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Sarkozy spoke about anti-Semitism in France, as well as attempts to rethink the assimilation of France (and Europe's) large and growing Muslim minority. He pointed out that not all Muslims were anti-Semites and not all anti-Semites were Muslims. “There have been polls in the beginning of 2000 about the reality or not of anti-Semitism and I told our friends that France was not an anti-Semitic country but that there is some anti-Semitism which we are combating with great energy,” Sarkozy told reporters after the meeting. Israel Singer told JTA: “Sarkozy made statements that could have been made by the head of any Jewish organization anywhere, they were that strong.”
At a different speech in New York, the French Interior minister said that nuclear nations should create a “bank” of nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes as a way of persuading Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. Sarkozy said the prospect of an Iran with nuclear weapons was unacceptable. “Through its support for Hezbollah and through its president’s unacceptable remarks on the Holocaust and the existence of Israel, the Iranian regime has made itself an outlaw nation,” Sarkozy told the French-American Foundation on Tuesday.
