France: President Mitterrand complained about the noxious Jewish lobby in France (1996)

Former French foreign minister Roland Dumas' comments about P.M. Manuel Valls being under "under Jewish influence" have attracted a lot of media attention.

What thethe media fail to mention is that the idea of  a powerful Jewish lobby that controls France is widespread.  The late President François Mitterrand, under whom Mr Dumas served, made similar but much stronger accusations.

 JTA  reported in1999

The late French President François Mitterrand complained about “the powerful and noxious influence of the Jewish lobby in France,” according to a French author.

Mitterrand’s daughter and some of his fellow socialists, including Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, denied the anti-Semitic implications made in Jean d’Ormesson’s latest book “The Gabriel Report,” [1999] although other sources close to Mitterrand confirmed that he spoke of the “Zionist lobby” and that he was known to make anti-Semitic remarks.

René Bousquet ()left, Danielle and François Mitterrand (ight) at Latché (the couple's holiday home, in 1974

During the war, until 1943, when he went over to the Résistance, Mr. Mitterrand supported Marshal Philippe Pétain the Vichy collaborationist regime and received the Ordre de la francisque (the honorific distinction of the Vichy Regime). Furthermore, René Bousquet was a regular visitor of François Mitterrand after his election as president in the 1980s.

Wikipedia has this on René Bousquet:  In 1989, a complaint was filed against Bousquet "for crimes against humanity, for the deportation of 194 young children from Paris. In 1991, Bousquet was indicted by the national government. [...]  On 8 June 1993, a few weeks before his trial was to begin, Bousquet was shot dead at his apartment at 34 Avenue Raphaël in Paris by the 51-year-old Christian Didier, who pled not guilty, as he claimed the execution was justified by Bousquet's wartime crimes."