Mme. Veil Gets the Wax Treatment

By Benjamin Ivry July 10, 2009

The French lawyer and politician Simone Veil (born 1927), profiled in The Forward last November on the occasion of her election to the Académie française, keeps going from strength to strength. Her latest honor is to have her wax effigy displayed at Paris’s Musée Grévin, as of July 9.

The typically imperturbable Mme. Veil, who survived the Holocaust as well as later death threats for sponsoring a French law which made abortion legal in some cases, was not overawed by the occasion. Asked by a French journalist whether she considered it an accomplishment to have a wax statue in one’s image, Veil replied sternly: “No! An amusement rather than an accomplishment. Being at the Musée Grévin is not an end in itself.”

One of Veil’s sons, present for the occasion, when asked if the statue resembles his mother, replied more diplomatically: “Very similar! Especially the jacket!”

Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.

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