France High Court Recognizes French Culpability in the Shoah

The French Council of State, the highest court in France, gave official legal recognition to France’s responsibility for its role in sending 77,000 Jews to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust.

The Council said that France had “permitted or facilitated the deportation from France of persons who had been victims of anti-Semitic persecution” and that these actions had not been the result of “direct constraints put upon it by the occupying [Nazi] force.”

The Council’s statement was part of an advisory opinion to a Paris administrative court in which the daughter of a French citizen deported to Auschwitz sought reparations from France.

The official trend of accepting France’s role in the Holocaust instead of differentiating between the French state itself and the Vichy government began in 1995 when French President Jacques Chirac publically acknowledged France’s role:

These dark hours forever sully our history and are an insult to our past and our traditions . . . . Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state.

Almost classically, this European state’s admittance of guilt also came with a disclaimer of any further responsibility towards the victims and their progeny: "The various measures taken since the end of World War II, both in terms of compensation as well as symbolic reparation, have repaired, as much as was possible, all the losses suffered," the Council said.

While the Court ruled out further monetary reparations, perhaps France as a whole should consider, at least, learning from its mistakes by giving it’s current Jewish community of more than 500,000 (higher than the 350,000 of pre-WWII France) greater protection from a growing anti-Jewish Muslim population and by giving greater support to the largest Jewish community in the world, the State of Israel, against the Nazi-like enemy it is confronted with on a daily basis.

Even more so, in recognition of the Holocaust, perhaps Europe as a whole can reject Arab's using the "apartheid" card when it comes to Israel . If it weren't for the Holocaust, Israel's population would be boosted by 6,000,000 and their progeny, making any comparison to South African aparthied or Arab democratic rights to control the State of Israel laughable.

For more information on France's Council of State's ruling see:
• France 'responsible' for holocaust deportations, court rules (Telegraph, Feb 16, 2009),
• French Holocaust role recognised (BBC, Feb. 16, 2009)
• France's role in Holocaust legally recognized (AP / Jerusalem Post, Feb 16, 2009)
• France 'responsible' for Holocaust deaths (CNN, Feb. 16, 2009)