Iraqi Jewish Family Sues France Over Embassy Use of Baghdad Mansion
A Jewish family of Iraqi origin has filed a civil lawsuit in Paris against the French government, seeking 21.5 million euros in compensation. The family alleges that France has used their ancestral mansion in Baghdad as its embassy for 50 years without payment, and that France cooperated in stripping them of their property rights. The property, known as Beit Lawee, was owned by brothers Ezra and Khedouri Lawee, who emigrated to Canada in the late 1940s. While the French ambassador initially leased the building from the Lawee brothers in 1964, payments ceased in 1974, with France instead transferring funds to Iraqi authorities. The French Foreign Ministry argues this was due to Iraqi legislation that stripped Jews who had left Iraq of their property. Attorneys Jean-Pierre Mignard and Imrane Ghermi contend that this 'dispossession of Jewish property was carried out with the cooperation of the Foreign Ministry' and was 'a unilateral measure of an antisemitic nature taken by the Iraqi authorities, which the Fr... 
