Wiesenthal Centre Congratulates Nicolas Sarkozy on His Accession as President of the French Republic
May 16, 2007
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SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE
Paris, 16 May 2007
Samuels stated, "On behalf of Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean and Founder of our Centre, and our over 400,000 worldwide membership, we are especially gratified to wish you - as the 2003 laureate of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Humanitarian Award - every success in the responsibilities and challenges that will face your administration." Samuels recalled how Sarkozy, as Mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly, had cooperated with the Centre in a Holocaust survivor's restitution claim against the municipality. As Minister of the Interior, the new President had worked with the Centre to contain the wave of antisemitic incidents that swept France following the 2000 outbreak of the Intifada, and subsequently related Middle East-fomented terrorism. President Sarkozy had keynoted the 2003 international conference in Paris on "Educating for Tolerance: The Case of Resurgent Antisemitism", co-organised by the Wiesenthal Centre and UNESCO. In 2004, he sent a delegation of French Police Commissioners to a sensitivity training course on racism and multiculturalism at the Centre's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. The President's tribute will appear next month in a volume of Essays in Memory of Simon Wiesenthal, entitled "Antisemitism - The Generic Hatred", published by the Centre under the auspices of UNESCO. "The Simon Wiesenthal Centre looks forward to continuing and expanding its warm cooperation with the new French Presidency and its Government", concluded Samuels.
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