France’s Jewish community have mourned the passing of the country’s former president Jacques Chirac, who was the first French head of state to recognise the country’s role in the deportation of Jews during the Holocaust.
France’s Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia said in a statement: «We are all orphans today. Jacques Chirac was a great man, a great Frenchman, a great statesman, for whom we had a great and particular affection and a respectful friendship. I will always preciously guard a memory of his curiosity for the world, his knowledge of Judaism and his love for art, as wel as his incredible courage and his vision for the progress of the countrys, notably when he the responsibility of France in the round-up of Vel d’Hiv or when he paid respect to the Righteous at the place they merited in the crypt of the Panthéon. ”Remember, Never Forget,’ he said in Hebrew, while paying homage to Ilan Halimi. We will always remember President Chirac and we will never forget the road that he paved for France.”