teddybear4play
better when i'm drunk
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2002
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Several hundred French hold pro-U.S. demonstration to express support for United States over Iraq crisis
Pamela Sampson
AP/Yahoo!
PARIS - The gratitude that Claire Gold has for the Americans who helped liberate France from the Nazis runs so deep that she still feels indebted to the United States, 59 years later.
That is why Gold, now 75, braved a bitterly cold Sunday evening to join about 250 other French men, women and children holding a pro-American demonstration at the Place de la Concorde, not far from the U.S. Embassy.
Gold was a 17-year-old Jew living in Paris when the French capital was liberated on Aug. 25, 1944 — the day she took off the yellow star she was forced to wear. Her father was not so lucky — he had been stripped of his citizenship and deported to Auschwitz, where he died. Gold believes she would have shared the same fate had the Americans not arrived when they did.
"I have been pro-American since the liberation," said Gold. "I always have been, and I always will be for the Americans."
These days, however, most French do not express the same enthusiasm for the United States, at least not for U.S. President George W. Bush and his efforts to assemble an international military coalition to attack Iraq.
In contrast to Sunday's small demonstration, tens of thousands of French took to the streets on Feb. 15 as part of anti-war protests in dozens of cities around the world. Opinion polls overwhelmingly show the French against using military force in order to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Among the demonstrators in Paris on Sunday were dozens of young French Jews, many draping themselves in American flags and chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!"
"I am here, against what most French students are doing, because they have forgotten Sept. 11," said Leslie Benaroch, 20, of Paris. "Saddam Hussein supports terrorism."
The sign in the second picture reads "Intervention now, please," and one on the right in the third says, "Inspections: sucker's trap."
TB4p
Pamela Sampson
AP/Yahoo!
PARIS - The gratitude that Claire Gold has for the Americans who helped liberate France from the Nazis runs so deep that she still feels indebted to the United States, 59 years later.
That is why Gold, now 75, braved a bitterly cold Sunday evening to join about 250 other French men, women and children holding a pro-American demonstration at the Place de la Concorde, not far from the U.S. Embassy.
Gold was a 17-year-old Jew living in Paris when the French capital was liberated on Aug. 25, 1944 — the day she took off the yellow star she was forced to wear. Her father was not so lucky — he had been stripped of his citizenship and deported to Auschwitz, where he died. Gold believes she would have shared the same fate had the Americans not arrived when they did.
"I have been pro-American since the liberation," said Gold. "I always have been, and I always will be for the Americans."
These days, however, most French do not express the same enthusiasm for the United States, at least not for U.S. President George W. Bush and his efforts to assemble an international military coalition to attack Iraq.
In contrast to Sunday's small demonstration, tens of thousands of French took to the streets on Feb. 15 as part of anti-war protests in dozens of cities around the world. Opinion polls overwhelmingly show the French against using military force in order to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Among the demonstrators in Paris on Sunday were dozens of young French Jews, many draping themselves in American flags and chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!"
"I am here, against what most French students are doing, because they have forgotten Sept. 11," said Leslie Benaroch, 20, of Paris. "Saddam Hussein supports terrorism."
The sign in the second picture reads "Intervention now, please," and one on the right in the third says, "Inspections: sucker's trap."
TB4p
