M. Hollande, the President of the French Republic, speaking on the 70th anniversary of the round-up of 13,000 Jews from Paris and its suburbs, to die in the camps, that is. The answer is, no, he did not. He said this:
La vérité, c'est que le crime fut commis en France, par la France. " La France, et non pas l'" autorité de fait dite "gouvernement de l'Etat français" ", comme il était de tradition de qualifier le régime de Vichy jusqu'à ce que M. Chirac, le 16 juillet 1995, ne rompe avec la périphrase officielle utilisée depuis la guerre en déclarant que " la France, ce jour-là, accomplissait l'irréparable ",
So, he acknowledged the resonsibility of "France" and not that of the Vichy government, for a part of the Holocaust, and also paid a kind of tribute to Jacques Chirac*, the first to acknowledge the responsibility of "France", on the same anniversary in 1995. The atrocity is known as "Vel d'Hiv" after its location, the former Velodrome d'Hiver (Winter Velodrome) in Paris - no French person will speak or write a word in full if it can be abbreviated.
Norm has posted on this today, too.
It seems a good and dignified way to acknowledge that historical responsibility.
Not one German soldier was involved in the Vel d'Hiv.
*Hugely admired by local librarian and former politician Dictatorship Dave Sutton
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