Richard Prasquier, a 62-year-old cardiologist, was elected on Sunday president of CRIF, the umbrella organization of French Jewry.

Prasquier defeated three other candidates in two rounds of voting. His election was a victory for France's Ashkenazi community, which succeeded in retaining its leadership of this key organization despite the fact that Ashkenazim now constitute a minority of French Jews.

Prasquier will be replacing Roger Cukierman, who has held the post since 2001.

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The new president, a child of Holocaust survivors, has thus far been cautious about making his political views known. However, members of the French Jewish community recalled that in 2004, he was one of the people who publicly objected to then prime minister Ariel Sharon's speech urging French Jews to move to Israel.

CRIF, which was set up at the end of World War II, represents the 500,000-strong Jewish community in its contacts with the French government. The organization's electoral body consists of 165 members representing various Jewish organizations active in France.

In recent years, CRIF has been criticized by Jews of North African descent, who charge that the electoral body's composition does not reflect the demographic revolution that the community has undergone. Nowadays, the decisive majority of French Jews are either immigrants from North Africa, who moved to France in the 1950s and 1960s, or their descendants.

In Sunday's election, the two candidates of North African descent, Jo Zrihen and Arie Bensemhoun, came in third and fourth. Second place was won by Henri Hajdenberg, a past president of the organization.