French town to name street for Arafat
La Seyne-sur-Mer mayor, defending move, notes there's a Rabin street nearby and both men won the Nobel Peace Prize
A town in southern France has voted to name a street after late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, according to French reports.
A majority of the town council in La Seyne-sur-Mer, outside Toulon on the Mediterranean coast, voted in favor of the move, French newspaper Nice Matin reported Thursday.
Several council members protested, with one calling Arafat a terrorist.
“There is also a Yitzhak Rabin Street in the neighborhood,” Mayor Marc Vuillemot fired back at the opponents, the reports said.
He noted that the late Israeli prime minister won a Nobel Peace Prize alongside Arafat for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993. “I did not go measure the two to see which of them was greater,” Vuillemot was quoted as saying.
In 2013, the Jewish community in Belfort, France defeated an effort to name a public square after Arafat. Belfort has a square named for Rabin.