France's top rabbi takes leave amid scandal

PARIS (AP) — France's top rabbi announced Thursday he is taking leave from his post, hoping to end a scandal that has unsettled the Jewish community after he acknowledged "borrowing" other people's work and lying about his educational pedigree.

The Central Consistory of France accepted Rabbi Gilles Bernheim's request for time away at an urgent meeting to discuss fallout from the case. Bernheim, 60, later issued a statement apologizing to France's Jewish community, his family and friends, and saying he could no longer do his job with the necessary "serenity."

"He hopes that the serious events he is blamed for and which mark him, don't obscure all the actions carried out in the name of his various rabbinical functions over the years in the service of the divine," the statement said. "He prays to be heard in his request for forgiveness..."

Richard Prasquier, the head of France's largest umbrella group of Jewish organizations, CRIF, said by phone that two other rabbis would temporarily fill the post of Grand Rabbi of France, while Bernheim is away for at least six months. Talks about whether he might return at all will take place in the coming months, he said.

Bernheim faced accusations by a French academic who tracks suspected plagiarism that parts of his 2011 book "Forty Jewish Meditations," and part of a text he wrote breaking down arguments in favor of gay marriage, same-sex parenting and adoption, were lifted from others. That text, written last fall, was cited in the Christmas address of Pope Benedict XVI last year.

Asked about the allegations Tuesday on Radio Shalom as the scandal swelled, Bernheim said he had carried out "borrowings ... what others might call plagiarism" from others. "Not only do I deeply regret it, but I recognize it as a moral flaw," he said of one instance.

Last month, Bernheim noted that pages from Meditation No. 26 were "nearly identical" to an excerpt from a 1991 interview with late French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard, compiled in a later book entitled "Questions on Judaism."

Later, Bernheim wrote that he'd relied on an unspecified student to help research and write the book — "a terrible error ... but for all that, I am responsible." And in the radio interview, he insisted his mistakes were not related to his job as top rabbi, and said he would not resign.

Bernheim had also come under scrutiny for claiming to have received an "aggregation" — or high-level certification — in philosophy. On Radio Shalom, he acknowledged he did not actually have one, but had made the claim 37 years ago during an unspecified "tragic event."

Bernheim in the radio interview also alluded to a phrase that he attributed to Hasidim founder Israel Baal Shem Tov: "Man is the stuttering of God, and that one must know how to accept sometimes to only be able to stutter without speaking perfectly or brilliantly."

France is home to the largest Jewish community in Western Europe, at some 500,000 people. The Consistory brings together nearly 500 synagogues and oratories in France and its overseas territories. Bernheim has been in the post since 2009. It normally has a seven-year term.

Bernheim helped guide the Jewish community through one of its most wrenching episodes in recent years — the shooting deaths of Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi in the southwestern city of Toulouse by a radical Islamist in March last year.

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France's Sarkozy investigated in party-funding affair

(Reuters) - Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was placed under formal investigation on Thursday in relation to a case involving L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, a judicial source said.

The source said the former president was being investigated for taking advantage of a vulnerable person.

Sarkozy has repeatedly denied taking campaign funds from Bettencourt, France's richest woman.

(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Sophie Hares)

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Judge: France's terror risk grows with Mali effort

PARIS (AP) — The longer that France's military intervention goes on in Mali, the greater the risk that homegrown Islamic militants will organize to plot attacks back in France, a top French counterterrorism investigator told The Associated Press.

Investigating Judge Marc Trevidic said young radicals in France see the Paris government as enemy No. 1 in the "new jihad" and consider France's intervention in Mali, which started last month to help the Malian government fight al-Qaida-linked militants, as an aggression against Islam. Small groups of France-based militants have already headed to Mali.

"The longer it goes on, things rot, the groups get organized, and the more networks constitute themselves. The longer it goes on, the more dangerous it grows," Trevidic said in an interview late Thursday. "The groups will need time to catch their breath, set up networks and possibly take action."

The investigating judge, who has been involved in some of France's biggest terrorism cases in recent years, spoke after diplomats and other French officials acknowledged to the AP this week that French forces are likely to remain in Mali at least through July.

President Francois Hollande and his major ministers have talked about a gradual pullout of the 4,000 troops now in Mali starting this month. But the combat in rugged Sahara Desert mountains is growing harder, and the threat is rising that the militants will turn to suicide attacks, hostage-takings and other guerrilla tactics.

Meanwhile, it's proving tougher to mobilize African troops to eventually take over the security lead from the French and to get European trainers on the ground to help better professionalize Mali's bedraggled soldiers.

Authorities in France for years have monitored radical Islamists — many whose families hail from former French colonies in northern Africa — who travel abroad to wage jihad, or holy war, and could return home with battle skills and know-how to carry out terrorist attacks.

But unlike Iraq, or the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which continue to draw some French militants, Mali and much of West Africa were once French colonies. Thousands of French and dual nationals reside there, do business and maintain family ties. And that makes it especially tricky to monitor suspect travelers.

Mali "is the fashionable jihad at the moment. ... In this new jihad, the enemy is clearly France," Trevidic said.

The 7-week-old French campaign, backed by Malian and other troops notably from Chad, has driven al-Qaida's affiliates out of the cities in northeast Mali that they controlled for 10 months. Now, French officials say, the hardest fighting is taking place where many insurgents have holed up in the Adrar des Ifoghas range along the extensive Algerian border.

Trevidic said French judicial cases involving Mali were first opened in June. Extremists took advantage of a power vacuum in Mali after a coup last year and started imposing harsh rule on cities across northern Mali.

"We noticed excitement from the moment that young French radical Muslims learned that Shariah law was being applied in north Mali," he said. Many French radicals with dual citizenship — French-Malian, French-Nigerien, French-Nigerian, French-Congolese — wanted to go.

About 15 people have traveled to the region, and a few have returned to France, Trevidic said. Legal cases have been opened involving about 10 people — most of whom never left France but sent allies to Mali to join Islamic groups.

A challenge for French authorities is monitoring them to see if they plot attacks and not arresting them right away — to solidify judicial cases against them — and especially trying to "control" those who do return home to France.

The French military intervention that started Jan. 11 all but halted militants' departures toward Mali, Trevidic said. "For now, the situation is too tumultuous," he said. "We're in a bit of wait-and-see about what happens in the months to come."

Since the French air and ground campaign began, militants in France have lowered their profiles.

"Everybody ... has ducked. They're not getting noticed. A big problem in the current legal cases is when people in groups being monitored converse and have normal relations, and then suddenly cut all ties. They don't call each other, they stop seeing each other," Trevidic said.

"You think, 'it's because of the military action, it's hot, and they don't want to get noticed'," he added. "But it can also be worrisome, sometimes, it could be a sign that they are getting close to an action."

"Maybe it will calm down, by some miracle. But it's all going to depend on the states involved and how they manage their own problems," he said. "If the French army leaves, will the Malian military be strong enough to thwart the counterattacks of the Islamists? For the moment, we don't quite have that impression."

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France's Hollande juggles trade, human rights in Moscow

PARIS (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande wants to boost trade ties with Moscow and will have to balance that with French concerns over Russia's human rights record during a debut Moscow visit on Thursday that could prove a diplomatic obstacle course.

An encounter in Paris last June between the newly elected Socialist Hollande and Russia's Vladimir Putin bristled with tension, unlike the cosy meetings between Putin and Hollande's conservative predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac.

Aides on both sides want to avoid the full-frontal clash on rights that marked German Chancellor Angela Merkel's trip to Moscow last year, when she accused Moscow of stifling dissent.

Moreover, with the French economy edging closer to recession and domestic demand moribund, Hollande needs all the outside help he can get to kick-start growth, and will be pushing for Russian business to step up investment in France.

Yet everything from Moscow's support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, in defiance of the West, to Putin's very public relish at French actor Gerard Depardieu's decision to take Russian nationality for tax reasons means the scope for misunderstandings is great.

"You can get on with someone without loving them," veteran Russia specialist Helene Carrere d'Encausse said of the strained pragmatism she saw defining the visit, whose high point is an 06.00 a.m. EST joint news conference with Hollande and Putin.

Hollande aides insist that, aside from Syria, the positions of Paris and Moscow converge in several areas - notably on Mali, where Russia has backed a U.N. resolution which is a key part of French efforts to extricate its soldiers and put African troops in the front line against al Qaeda allies.

RIGHTS RECORD

Russia sees Tuesday's move by major powers to offer Iran some sanctions relief in return for a halt of some atomic work as a sign that France and other Western states are moving closer to its thinking on an issue that has divided the U.N. Security Council for years.

"In bilateral ties I see no major problems," said Alexei Pushkov, head of foreign affairs committee in the Russian parliament's lower chamber.

"From my contacts with the French lawmakers I get the impression they have a calm attitude towards Russia. Of course there is come criticism, but not to the extent that can be heard in the U.S. Congress or the German Bundestag," he added.

French officials insist Putin's embrace of Depardieu after his decision to seek exile from French taxes on the rich will not jar relations - even with the actor's outing this weekend to the Chechnya region where rights groups accuse security services of extrajudicial killings and other abuses.

But Hollande is under pressure at home to raise human rights concerns including the fate of Putin critics such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, 49, once Russia's richest man and now serving 13 years jail on fraud and tax evasion charges.

"The last year has been the worst for human rights in Russia in recent memory, and Hollande should not miss this chance to persuade Putin to turn things around," said Rachel Denber of New York-based Human Rights Watch, pointing to new laws which she said restricted public assembly and Internet content in Russia.

The two leaders may broach delicate energy issues, with the European Union seeking to wind down its gas reliance on Russia and Moscow angry over EU efforts to force dominant suppliers such as Russia's Gazprom to sell off infrastructure.

But Paris is keener to focus on raising Russian investment in France, which at around one billion euros only accounts for a 12th of the value of French investment in Russia.

While no major deal is due to be announced, small economic cooperation pacts, plans to facilitate visas and student exchanges are likely to be announced.

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Jon Boyle and Michael Roddy)

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