According to Haaretz.com, an Israeli news site, on September 8th of this year France’s Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy made an official visit to Israel’s new Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. He perused the maps showing former European sites where Jewish communities had flourished before being destroyed by the Nazis. He inquired of his hosts as to whether British Jews were not also murdered. His Israeli hosts were dumbfounded, to say the least, at Douste-Blazy’s question. “But Monsieur le minister,” the museum curator responded, “England was never conquered by the Nazis during World War II.” The minister seemed discontented with the answer given by the Israelis and continued asking: “Yes, but were there no Jews who were deported from England?”

One of the escorts confirmed on Sunday, on condition of anonymity, that the quotes in Le Canard were accurate, and that they caused great embarrassment. “It’s a bit difficult to understand,” the source said, “how an educated French person, who was serving in the French government during the huge celebrations of the Normandy landings, does not remember basic facts about the history of World War II, and especially Britain’s role, especially in light of the fact, that France’s great leader, General de Gaulle, led the operations of the Resistance from exile in London.” ~~Haaretz.com

One has to wonder if Monsieur Douste-Blazy was unaware that the British successfully fought off the Nazis, or if he knew that England remained unconquered throughout the war, but reckoned they would have at least availed themselves of the opportunity to transport their Jewish citizens over to Hitler. Either way, he comes off looking like the fool that he is. Ruffles and Flourishes to Dymphna at Gates of Vienna where she has posted a great “new” map of “old Europe“. No Pasaron refers to the French Foreign Minister as “Douste-Blazy stranger than fiction“.

What do the French think of their “unaware” Minister? The French embassy in Israel did not learn of the embarrassing incident until it was published in ‘’Le Canard‘’. When the story arrived back in France, apparently they thought it was satire or a funny joke - as in “ha, ha“, as “Le Canard” is a satirical publication. It was the only report of the minister’s faux pas, probably because all the legitimate French journalists are occupied covering the war in Iraq and Camp Casey in America to be concerned with such trifles.

“Moonbat Central” has a very active message board on the subject, as they delight in knocking the French a bit:

The French are without a doubt the snootiest of them all. Which makes it all the more delicious to discover that the Foreign Minister of France was not aware of the fact that Germany did not conquer the UK during World War II. (Maybe he has been attending a public school with a teachers union?)

UPDATE: United Press International is reporting that there were in fact British Jews transported to the Germans when the British Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney off Normandy were occupied. The islanders of Jersey simply told German occupation authorities that it had no Jews. However, officials in Guernsey actually did transfer three Eastern European Jewish women to the Nazi’s custody. In addition, the island of Alderney housed the only SS concentration camp on British soil.

Tracked at Outside the Beltway and The Political Teen.