By Richard Balmforth
PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, facinga tide of criticism over his call for schoolchildren to "adopt"Jewish child victims of the Holocaust, hit back on Fridaysaying France had to raise children "with open eyes".
However, in a move that could sink the project, France'smost prominent Holocaust survivor, Simone Veil, came out firmlyagainst the plan, calling it "unimaginable, untenable,appalling and, above all, unjust".
Sarkozy touched off the controversy on Wednesday when hetold France's Jewish community that every 10-year-oldschoolchild should be "entrusted with the memory of a Frenchchild victim of the Holocaust".
The proposal unleashed a storm of protest from teachers,psychologists and his political foes who said it would unfairlyburden children with the guilt of previous generations and somecould be traumatised by identifying with a Holocaust victim.
More than 11,100 French Jewish children were deported fromFrance to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps in easternEurope during the German World War Two occupation.
"The emotional burden can have negative consequences for achild who is developing," Gilles Moindrot, general secretary ofthe Snuipp-FSU trade union which represents most primary schoolteachers, said in a statement.
The EMDH children's rights group said: "No educationalproject should be constructed on death."
KNOWLEDGE
But Sarkozy, speaking in Perigueux in central France,brushed off the uproar.
"It is ignorance that produces abominable situations. It isnot knowledge," he said in a speech. "Let us make our children,children with open eyes who are not complacent."
"Believe me, you will not traumatise children by givingthem the gift of the memory of a country ... Any psychologistwill tell you: you have to tell a child the truth," he said.
But Veil, who supported Sarkozy's presidential bid and whosat next to him at the Wednesday dinner, appeared to disagree.
"One can't inflict this on 10 year olds. You cannot ask achild to identify with a dead child," Veil, who was deported toAuschwitz when she was 16, told L'Express news magazine.
With Sarkozy's popularity ratings already at a low point,the controversy could further hurt his political standing onlya month before key local elections when France will deliver itsfirst judgment on his nine months in office.
The clamour gave fresh ammunition to his political foes,who charge him with erratic behaviour and say his hyperactivitymasks a lack of real policies.
"Really this president is extraordinary! One day he ispreaching God to us ... Now he has suddenly become a teacher.He is deciding what's a good and what's a bad way to go abouteducating young children," fumed left-wing Senator Jean-LucMelenchon.
But Sarkozy won support from opposition Socialist leaderFrancois Hollande and the president's conservative UMP partyrallied in support.
Education Minister Xaviet Darcos assured people the projectwould be handled in a practical, low-profile way. "We won't beputting a policeman in each classroom," he told reporters.
(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau in Perigueux andCrispian Balmer; Editing by Michael Winfrey)
