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Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has touched a raw nerve in France by denying the French state's responsibility for a mass arrest of Jews in Paris during World War II.
- 13,000 Jews were deported from Vel d'Hiv in Paris to Auschwitz in 1942
- France's role was first acknowledged by Jacques Chirac in 1995
- Le Pen's comments condemned by other presidential candidates, Jewish groups
Ms Le Pen, a frontrunner in the election being held this month and next, triggered an outcry with her comments on one of the darkest episodes of French history when the country was occupied by the Nazis during the war.
"I think France isn't responsible for the Vel d'Hiv," Ms Le Pen told French media on Sunday, referring to the July 16, 1942 German-ordered roundup by French police of 13,000 Jews in Paris.
Most of the Jews were crammed in appalling conditions into the Velodrome d'Hiver or Winter Velodrome cycling stadium, colloquially known as the Vel d'Hiv, before being deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
"I think that, in general, if there are people responsible, it is those who were in power at the time. It is not France," Ms Le Pen said in comments that were condemned by other Presidential candidates, a Jewish group and Israel's Foreign Ministry.
"We have taught our children that they had every reason to criticise France, to see only the darkest historical aspects perhaps," she said.
"I want them to be proud of being French once more."
France has long struggled to come to terms with its role under the collaborationist Vichy regime during World War II.
Altogether 76,000 Jews deported from France were killed.
In 1995, then president Jacques Chirac recognised that the French state shared responsibility for deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during the war, the first time a post-war French head of state had fully acknowledged France's role.
Socialist President Francois Hollande in 2012 described the 1942 mass arrest as "a crime committed in France, by France".
Ms Le Pen issued a statement late on Sunday saying she considered that the French state was in exile in London during the occupation and that her stance "in no way exonerates the effective and personal responsibility of the French people who took part in the horrible Vel d'Hiv roundup and in all the atrocities committed during this period".
Polls suggest Ms Le Pen is set to win about 24 per cent of the vote in the first round of the French presidential election, held on 23 April, but would lose heavily if she were to make it through to a run-off election, most probably against François Fillon or Emmanuel Macron.
Reuters
Topics: world-politics, world-war-2, france, european-union