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NEWS
Elysee Diplomat Found to Be Son of Jewish Holocaust
Survivors
By Arnon Yaffeh, Paris
Jean David Levitte, the diplomatic advisor to President
Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace, was suddenly discovered
to be a Jew whose father ran a Jewish orphanage in a remote
French village under the Nazi occupation. Levitte's Jewish
origins were kept hidden throughout his diplomatic career in
the Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is normally reserved for
French aristocrats. A book by a British historian describes
the Ministry as a holdout of French antisemitism from bygone
eras.
Levitte, who served as diplomatic advisor to former President
Jacques Chirac and later as the French Ambassador to the US,
did a thorough job of concealing his background. According to
reporter Claude Askolovitz, the aristocracy was suspicious of
the name Levitte, which has a Jewish ring. Former Prime
Minister Dominic de Villepin, secretary-general of the Elysee
during the period Levitte was head of diplomacy under Chirac
and later foreign minister, despised him. At the time,
Villepin described the Jews as the leaders of the US
administration. Today he stands trial for an intrigue against
Sarkozy and Levitte is running the president's diplomacy.
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