SARKOZY TO MAKE JEW NATIONAL ADVISOR?

Sarkozy Accedes - Editorial (New York Sun)
On May 10, incoming French President Sarkozy joined outgoing President Chirac for talks with Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, leader of Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, underscoring the incoming president's commitment to the outgoing president's policy in respect to Syria and Lebanon.

Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders and one of the rare Frenchmen who, in 2003, broke with France's anti-American consensus over the Iraq war, is now touted as the new foreign minister. That follows a scare that Sarkozy was considering bringing back the hostile former socialist foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine. In the midst of the intifada, Kouchner received an award from an Israeli university, a sign of backbone amidst the wave of boycotts and extremist anti-Israel rhetoric sweeping Europe at the time.

France's current envoy in Washington, Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, is reportedly to be appointed as National Security Adviser.

See also Levitte, National Security Advisor - Rob Eshman (Jewish Journal - April 2006)
Jean-David Levitte, France's ambassador to the United States, is arguably its most effective defender against charges of anti-Semitism, in no small part because he himself is Jewish. Levitte's own grandparents were sent to Auschwitz. His father and uncle joined the resistance, and his father later became the leader of the American Jewish Committee in France for 30 years.