Serge Klarsfeld, co-founder of the association “Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees of France”, said on Friday that he accepted the medal from the city of Perpignan because of the “evolution” of the career of the RN mayor of this commune, Louis Aliot. This medal presentation of the city by Louis Aliot, on October 13, had aroused controversy and an open letter in Release by historians Denis Peschanski and Renée Poznanski, who described this episode as “sad and serious”. Claiming to understand the controversy, the 87-year-old historian and lawyer, a figure in the memory of the Shoah, said on France Inter to take “the general interest into account as well”.
“The extreme right is turning right, evolving towards the Republican camp”
“When I see an evolution in an extreme right, when I see people who rally to our values, who condemn, as Louis Aliot did, the Vel d’Hiv roundup (…), who respect the memory of the Shoah (…), when I see that he opposes the great replacement and the identity line of the hardliners of the RN, well, I can only see it, “he said. affirmed. “The DNA of any far-right party is anti-Semitism. However, I see that there is an evolution in some and I push for this peaceful evolution,” he continued. He said he preferred that “the extreme right turns to the right, evolves towards the Republican camp rather than seeing the right go over to the side of the extreme right”.
Louis Aliot (who is a candidate for the presidency of the RN) is “conservative, he is certainly reactionary”, added Serge Klarsfeld, assuring that he would continue to “oppose a movement which will be conservative and reactionary”. “What I want to say today quite simply is that he was a political enemy, today he becomes an adversary (…), so there is an evolution”, continued Mr. Klarsfeld . He “did not go to Perpignan to see Louis Aliot”, but to decorate the representative of his association in Perpignan with the Legion of Honor, he added. “The mayor was there for this ceremony and he offered us (he and his wife Beate Klarsfeld) the medal of honor of Perpignan”.