Montreal is going ahead with plans to remove any trace of Alexis Carrel’s name from public places.

The French Nobel-Prize winning doctor supported eugenics and the Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War

 A street and a park in the Canadian city currently bear his name but in 2016 Montreal mayor Denis Coderre pledged that he would work to rename them.  

The city council will vote later this month on new names. It has been suggested that Alexis-Carrel Avenue might be redesignated in honour of Italian-Jewish Nobel laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, known for her work in neurobiology.

In  a statement, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ Quebec branch said: “Alexis Carrel was a French scientist who supported the forced sterilisation programmes applied by the Nazis against any human being considered ‘racially inferior’ or ‘socially undesirable,’.”

The centre's vice-president, Eta Yudin, added: “We are pleased to learn that these place names, which are incompatible with the universal principles of equality and human dignity, will soon become a thing of the past.”