Woody Allen Disagrees With Warnings

CANNES, France (Cannes Festival Website) - Woody Allen said Wednesday that he disagrees strongly with an ad from an American Jewish group warning Americans attending the Cannes Film Festival about anti-Semitism in France.

The ad placed in Hollywood trade papers last week by the American Jewish Congress does not call for a boycott of the festival, which opened Wednesday, but the group says that those who do attend should do so only if they'll speak out against anti-Semitism.
"I don't believe in it," Allen said at a news conference, in response to a question. "I've never felt the French people were in any way anti-Semitic," the director said.

The ad, which appeared in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter on May 8, reads: "If you are going to CANNES please consider: France, 1942 ... France, 2002."

It compares anti-Semitic incidents during World War II to recent ones, including the firebombing of synagogues, arson attacks and the desecration of Torah scrolls.

The recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks in France has been linked by many to the escalating fighting in the Middle East , and has been blamed by Jewish groups on Muslim youths venting their anger.

Some American Jews have been canceling trips to France. However, Roger Cukierman, president of CRIF, an umbrella organization for secular French Jewish groups, was recently in New York and Washington to say that a boycott would be "counterproductive." Jack Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress, said: "It is unfortunate that Woody Allen, a leading member of the entertainment community, did not take the opportunity ... to make a single statement attacking the recent outbreak of anti-Semitism in France."

Allen, whose films have long been popular in France, was attending the festival for the first time, and helped kick off the ceremonies.

The director, who is Jewish, also commented on the recent French elections, in which extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen - widely seen as racist and anti-Semitic - stunned the country by qualifying for a runoff against President Jacques Chirac . He then lost to Chirac in a landslide.
"I think the French can be very proud of the way they responded in the last election," Allen said, calling Le Pen's defeat "a clear-cut response to the extreme right."