The dark history of France’s embassy in Iraq goes on trial in Paris

Ezra and Khedouri Lawee believed France, a powerful tenant, would honor its commitments to the family when it occupied the house in 1965, despite any potential threats from Iraqi authorities.

More than 60 years ago, the French government rented a stately mansion in Baghdad from a Jewish Iraqi family and set up its embassy there. France still uses the building as its embassy, but it has not paid rent to the family in decades.

Now, the family is suing France for $22 million, arguing that the country profited from an Iraqi government campaign of antisemitism. The family says France unilaterally abandoned its contract with it, benefiting from a much cheaper deal offered by the Iraqi government, which expropriated the house under a law that dispossessed Jewish owners.

Ezra and Khedouri Lawee — brothers who built the home starting in 1935 on the banks of the Tigris River — believed France, a powerful tenant, would honor its commitments to the family when it occupied the house in 1965, despite any potential threats from Iraqi authorities.

“To save the house, my father leased it to the French,” said Mayer Lawee, 86, the son of Ezra Lawee and one of the last surviving family members who lived in the house. “My father was upset. It’s his home. He built it from scratch and it was taken away.”

In a hearing set for Monday in Paris, the family’s lawyers plan to put French principles on trial, presenting the case through the lens of the country’s avowed commitments to righting its past wrongs. The French government, however, views the matter narrowly, and has argued for dismissal, saying that any culpability lies with Iraq.

The case, involving an unusual blend of contractual and human rights claims, also highlights the plight of about 130,000 Iraqi Jews who from 1941 to 1951 fled or were forced from Iraq, where their ancestors had lived since the biblical “Babylonian Captivity” 2,600 years earlier. The Lawees were among 900,000 Jews who fled or were expelled from Arab and Muslim countries after the founding of Israel in 1948

The family’s lawyers contend the case is analogous to claims made by the descendants of Holocaust victims, who are entitled to restitution from the French government for property stolen during the Nazi era. “The French state’s decision to submit to the antisemitic regulations of a foreign state is unconstitutional, illegal and violates international conventions,” Jean-Pierre Mignard and Imrane Ghermi, lawyers for the family, argued in a complaint filed in 2024.

France counters that the damages claimed by the family “are directly caused by decisions adopted by the Iraqi authorities.” But in disavowing all responsibility, President Emmanuel Macron’s government finds itself in the awkward position of relying on discriminatory Iraqi laws in its defense.

Conflicting Accounts

The Lawee brothers designed the large house with classic columns, curved porticos and expansive rooms, each with his wife and children taking a side, and everyone gathering on the roof or in the garden, Mayer Lawee recalled. But in the late 1940s, amid mounting animosity against Jews over the establishment of Israel, he said, Iraq’s king urged the family to leave.

Much of the family soon settled in Canada, where the brothers built similar homes on neighboring Montreal lots with features deliberately reminiscent of their Baghdad mansion. Still, two relatives remained in the Iraqi house for a decade, then entrusted it to a caretaker until the family’s agent made a deal with France in 1964.

The precise terms of that agreement, just what happened afterward and which laws apply are in dispute. But it is clear that for six turbulent decades, through the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein and two U.S.-led invasions, France has continued using the house as its official outpost in Baghdad.

Since 1969, when Iraq claimed ownership of the mansion, France has paid rent to the Iraqi government. The family contends that France at first also kept paying it according to the original deal, but stopped in 1974, and ignored its inquiries.

France has argued that Iraqi laws depriving Jews of property, beginning in the 1950s, justified French compliance with Iraqi authorities. It has also demanded more proof of the family’s claims.

Younger members of the family grew up with elders speaking Arabic and waxing nostalgic about homes that they would never see again, that subsequent generations could never know.

“I consider myself Iraqi, and then a Canadian, which is funny since I’ve never been to Iraq,” said Philip Khazzam, 66, a grandson of Ezra Lawee.

The Baghdad house loomed large in family lore, and as his elders aged, Khazzam grew more interested in what happened. The more he dug, he said, the more he became convinced that France had acted unjustly by profiting from Iraq’s discrimination with no objection or explanation.

“I’ve only seen pictures of our house. But still, it lives in me every day,” Khazzam said. “Which is why it matters to me — all the decades later and halfway around the world — much more than an ordinary building ever could. It still is a part of our family.”

Righting Wrongs

Macron has portrayed France as a leader in restitution efforts as debates about restoring property unjustly acquired through war, totalitarianism or colonialism have swept Europe.

In practice, though, the French have been slow to return looted goods, drawing sharp criticism and recently prompting legal changes to speed the process.

The Lawees hope that shifting sentiment and laws will influence the court to take an expansive view of their claim, framing it in this wider context. Still, experts in cultural property law said the family does not have a traditional restitution claim, like Nazi-era looting cases. France tightly circumscribes what qualifies for restitution. The family’s claim, based on one country’s submission to another’s discriminatory policies, seems to fall squarely outside that category, they say.

Evelien Campfens, an art and cultural heritage law lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, said that French restitution measures technically would not apply to the Lawee home because it is outside France. But because the property has an intangible value and precious memories for the family, she said, it may be possible for their lawyers to draw an analogy to the looted property in traditional restitution cases.

The effort may be more politically powerful than legally sound, according to Anne-Sophie Nardon, a French cultural property lawyer. “I think the goal is to first make the case public and force the government to speak and enter into negotiations,” she said.

But failed talks are what led to court. French officials in 2021 responded to the family’s inquiries after attempts over decades yielded no responses. The family hoped France would exert influence in Iraq to help it reclaim the home.

Instead, France suggested the family try to reestablish Iraqi citizenship to potentially regain ownership rights, rather than attempt an untested diplomatic process. The family says no Iraqi lawyer would handle its case, and in 2024, it took its claim to a French administrative court.

In November, Khazzam wrote to Macron, urging France to resolve the matter in mediation. “France does not want to occupy stolen property,” he said. “This is for the dictators and thieves who run failing states.”

Macron has not answered. His office did not respond to a request for comment.

The French president has been outspoken about France’s role in the Holocaust and has pledged to vigilantly fight antisemitism. “In the face of hatred, the republic will always have the last word,” he said in September, responding to a rise in attacks against Jews. “The nation will always be mobilized.”

Yet in resisting the Lawees’ call for accountability, the government risks calling that commitment into question, and damaging its reputation, said Campfens.

“It’s a moral claim,” she said, “and it is embarrassing for the French government.”