Richard Prasquier, the President of CRIF, while considering that recent remarks made in March 2007 by Raymond Barre, on a public radio channel, “had conveyed an intolerable deep-seated animosity toward the Jews,” added that “when someone dies, there is a time for polemics to quieten down, after which comes the time for historical appraisal”.
On several occasions, Raymond Barre had been criticised for his anti-Semitic remarks. On October 3rd 1980, reacting to the bomb attack against the synagogue in rue Copernic in Paris, then Prime Minister Raymond Barre, had denounced this “odious deed that aimed to strike Jews who were heading for the synagogue and had hit innocent French people”. Referring to this incident last March on the France Culture radio channel, Raymond Barre had presented himself as a victim of the “Jewish lobby” which was “capable of setting up outrageous operations”.
Barre had also supported Maurice Papon, who had been a minister in his government, when Papon had put on trial for his role during the Occupation, and considered that Bruno Gollnisch, a politician from Lyon who is a leading member of the French extreme-right wing National Front, sentenced for negationist statements, was “a good person”.
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