851.4016/42: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France ( Leahy )

515. Your 708, June 16, 8 p.m. You are instructed to address a communication to the French Foreign Office relating to the two new anti-Semitic decree-laws of June 14, 1941 and point out that this Government assumes that the provisions of these decree-laws will not be applied to American nationals in unoccupied France. In the opinion of this Government the provisions of the decree-laws, if applied to American nationals, would tend to divide them arbitrarily into two classes and subject them to differential treatment on the basis of such classification. In making your representations you should call to the attention of the French Foreign Office that it is one of the fundamental principles of this Government to make no distinction between different classes of American nationals on the basis of race or creed, and [Page 510] uniformly in its relations with foreign nations it has emphatically declined to recognize the right of those nations to apply on their part such discrimination as between American nationals. This principle, furthermore, is applied by this Government to nationals of foreign countries residing in the United States, including Frenchmen. The application to American nationals of the measures referred to would be incompatible with this principle in that it would have the effect of dividing them into two broad classes, namely, Jewish and non-Jewish, and would apparently accord to the former differential treatment of an unusual and prejudicial character with respect to activities and sojourn. This Government assumes, therefore, that, upon due consideration, the French Government will decide that American citizens lawfully residing in France will not be discriminated against on account of race or creed and that they will not be subjected to provisions of the nature of those embodied in the decree-laws in question.

Reference your 719, June 19, 8 p.m. In reply to requests for advice you should explain the attitude of this Government as set forth above and point out that it will maintain this position in any protests which it may make on behalf of American citizens in individual cases. While the Embassy should carefully avoid any action which might be construed as acquiescence in the application of anti-Jewish measures to Americans, it should, in any concrete case brought to its attention by Americans, where the measures have been or are being applied, make appropriate representations. However, you should make clear to the American citizens concerned that each person must decide for himself what preventive action he may consider most useful in connection with his individual case.

It appears from second paragraph of your 719 that failure to register as a member of the Jewish race within the specified period provides for penalties of fines up to 10,000 francs and imprisonment in Leipzig for 1 year. The Department does not understand how a decree-law of unoccupied France can provide as a penalty imprisonment in Germany. You are instructed to report more fully on this phase of the new decree-laws and to protest most vigorously should any attempt be made to imprison in Germany an American resident of unoccupied France.

Welles