As nice as after-dinner speeches, proclamations, specialty Holocaust museums, and perfunctory regrets are in their different ways, they do not constitute, in whole or part, a legal acknowledgement of French criminality in the deportation and extermination of Jews and others during WWII. French courts persist in upholding the legal fiction that Vichy France just wasn't France. If you've a complaint with Vichy France, well, take it graveside to the Cimetière de Port-Joinville.
But of course Vichy France didn't just show up with the Germans. It was a French invention invented by Frenchmen for the governance of France and the French. Albert Lebrun, the Third Republic president (1932-1940), invited Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain to form a government following the resignation of Prime Minister Paul Reynaud on 06.16.40. It was in his capacity as the 87th (and last) Prime Minister of the Third Republic that Marshal Pétain signed an Armistice with Germany, 06.22.40.
On 07.10.40, the duly elected Third Republic voted itself out of existence in favor of ceding all government power to Marshal Pétain. The Vichy government was legally established under the Third Republic's governing constitution by Constitutional Act No.2 of 07.11.40, Article II of which effectively junked the establishing document. The Vichy government was then regularized by Constitutional Act No.7 of 01.27.41.
We bring all this up because France cannot bear to. For many French today, France in WWII was all Maquis dare-ee-do. Why, Vichy France is just a dramatic convention, the required foil, for French Résistance heroics.
FRANCE MAY HAVE TO PAY FOR WWII DEPORTATIONS
TOULOUSE, France May 16, 2006 (AFP) - The French state and the SNCF [Société Nationale des Chemins de Fers Français] rail operator may face a fine of EUR 60,000 for their role in the deportation of Jews during World War II, after a state lawyer Tuesday urged their condemnation before a court in the southern city of Toulouse.The case was brought by the family of Green party deputy Alain Lipietz, whose father and uncle were taken by train to an internment camp in Paris in May 1944. Both survived the war. If the case succeeds it will be the first-ever conviction of this kind before a French court.
Previous attempts to condemn the SNCF in criminal and civil courts have failed, and the current case before an administrative court rested on claims that the French state authorities, the police and the SNCF failed to provide their required services. In the past courts have ruled that the SNCF was commandeered during the war by the occupying German army, while the Vichy government was an aberration for which the post-war French state was not responsible.
Lipietz's lawyer Remi Rouquette said that "in the round-ups, it was not the Gestapo but the French authorities who took action."
It is not as if the SNCF is unaware of its actions. A massive 5-volume study (La SNCF sous l’occupation 1940-44; 1993; 1,587 pp.) was commissioned by the SNCF from L’Institut d’histoire du temps présent (IHTP). The report was not published at the time of its completion because of its incriminations and has only been available since 1999 at the IHTP in Paris.
Last year a bill (H. R. 474) was introduced in the United States House of Representatives to establish jurisdiction in American courts for claims "arising from the deportation of United States citizens and others to Nazi concentration camps on trains". The bill's finding neatly makes the case against the SNCF:
(1) During World War II, more than 75,000 Jews and thousands of other persons were deported from France to Nazi concentration camps, on trains operated for profit by the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fers Français (in this Act referred to as “SNCF”), including deportations to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Numerous citizens and residents of the United States were among those on the trains or had relatives on the trains. United States servicemen who were pilots shot down over France were also among the persons deported on the SNCF trains to Nazi concentration camps.(2) United States citizens and others have sought redress against SNCF by filing a class action suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The named plaintiffs and class members include United States Army Air Force pilots and United States citizens.
(3) The complaint filed alleges that SNCF, a separate corporate entity which remained independent during World War II, operated the deportation trains for a profit, as ordinary commercial transactions. SNCF remained under French civilian control throughout World War II and is alleged to have collaborated willingly with the German Nazi regime.
(4) The complaint alleges that SNCF provided the necessary rolling stock, scheduled the departures, and supplied the employees to operate the trains bound for the concentration camps. SNCF allegedly charged an ordinary passenger coach fare for the deportations, calculated per person and per kilometer, and considered these trains as ordinary commercial activities. The plaintiffs further contend that SNCF herded as many people as possible into each car, requiring passengers of all ages and sexes, including the elderly and young children, to stand throughout the trip of several days’ duration, with no provision for food or water and no sanitary facilities. The complaint further alleges that SNCF cleaned the trains after each trip, removing the corpses of persons who perished during transit due to the execrable conditions of the train cars. The destination was in each case a camp in which the deportees were to be exterminated, worked to death, or made to suffer terrible and inhuman conditions.
(5) The complaint contends that SNCF’s actions violated the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1950, relating to crimes under international law (earlier recognized by the Martens Clause of the Hague Convention IV of 1907), and aided and abetted the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. SNCF has not denied its actions and has never disgorged the money that it was paid for the deportations or otherwise compensated the deportees or their heirs.
(6) SNCF’s records concerning the deportation trains have not been made available to the plaintiffs, and SNCF archives concerning its wartime activities remain closed to the general public.
(7) SNCF moved to dismiss the lawsuit on a claim of sovereign immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (28 U.S.C. 1330 and 1602 et seq.), even though it is one of the 500 largest corporations in the world, earns hundreds of millions of dollars from its commercial activities in the United States, and is not accorded sovereign immunity under the laws of France. SNCF’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit has been granted by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Plaintiffs appealed the decision, their appeal was granted, and the case was remanded for further proceedings. In November 2004, on remand, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined that SNCF was entitled to immunity and affirmed the dismissal of the complaint.
(8) This lawsuit presents issues of substantial importance to citizens and veterans of the United States and finds that the courts of the United States are and should be a proper forum for this lawsuit and similar suits.
(9) SNCF is attempting to use the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, enacted 30 years after the events at issue occurred, to evade liability for conduct for which it would otherwise be held accountable, rather than accepting responsibility for its actions. Under the rule of separate entities applicable at the time of the events in question, SNCF would not be immune from suit in United States courts. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 was not intended to expand the reach of immunity in these circumstances.
This bill is currently before the House Committee on the Judiciary.
PFFT (What is this?): Guilt without responsibility 5 | Rayonnement français 0
Bonjour,
Philip Roth cite dans son dernier roman 15 personnages-clés des années 1940 aux USA.Sur ce nombre sept oui !! sept hitlériens fanatiques
A savoir:
-Henry Ford (1863-1947):
pro-nazi fanatique ,il a traduit les "protocoles des Sages de Sion".De plus il se livrait à une propagande nazie dans son journal ("The Deaborn Independent").
-Charles Lindebergh (1902-1974):
Candidat hitlérien à la présidence US.
-Charles Coughlin (1891-1979);
Fondateur du journal fasciste "Social justice".
-Gérald L.K. Smith (1898-1976):
Fondateur du journal négationniste "The Cross and the Flag"
-James Pegler (1894-1969):
Furieux antisémite ,éditorialiste chez Hearst Corporation ,prix Pulitzer
-Fulton Lewis (1903-1966):
Journaliste très populaire à la radio.
Proche du groupe fasciste "America First"
-Burton K.Wheeler (1882-1975):
Fidèle soutien (et membre du Parti Démocrate) du Nazi
LIndebergh
Ce glorieux passé que les Yanks ont tout fait pour dissimuler les autorise à faire la morale au Monde entier ...
Indeed ?
Merci à l' américain Roth de nous le rappeler...
"The end of innocence ?"
Good luck to (?) your country in Irak.
Ah, M. AB/AY,
Here we have Mr. Roth, an American, accusing ignominious Americans and M. AB/AY, a Frenchman, excusing ignominious France.
As long as there is one American who offered sympathies to Nazism, the whole of France -- her government, her people -- is exculpated for doing the actual bidding of the Nazis.
M. AB/AY, did it escaped your notice that M. Rouquette, a French lawyer, is representing French plaintiffs suing the French state and a French corporation for moral depravity? Or is no one authorized to make moral claims against France? Does all France need in her moral universe is a list of less-than-good Americans to put her beyond justice for Frenchmen?
Indeed.
DGB
Bonjour,
Bien sûr , bien sûr vous continuez à distiller votre haine contre la France et nous dire tous nazis ,nous les Français.
Voyez-vous quand Lindbergh déclarait bien EN PAIX aux USA :
"Les responsables de la Guerre sont les Juifs et les Anglais" (11/9/ 41) (Source:P. Roth).
cela faisait plus d' un an que mon grand-père était tombé les armes à la main face aux hordes nazies (22/6/40).Alors la propagande yanks continuelle depuis 60 ans "Frenchman=Surrender" ne m'impressionne pas beaucoup...
En fait les Yanks si vous n' étiez pas des collabos de jure , vous l 'étiez de facto jusqu'au 7/12/41 et la déclaration de Guerre que vous a faite l 'Allemagne nazie.
PS:la glorieuse armée des caniches brits compterait (source: "the Times") plus de 1000 déserteurs en Irak et la glorieuse armée US ?
Good luck to ? your country in Irak.
Ah, M. AB/AY,
Everyone hates France but you. M. Rouquette, a Frenchman, he hates France. The Lipietz family, a French family, they hate France. Even Jack, a French president, who has admitted to what the SNCF here contests, even Jack hates France.
As for Mr. Lindbergh he spoke in no government capacity. He spoke for himself. And as odious as his pronouncement may be, he never shipped any Jews off to Auschwitz. The American government never shipped any of its citizens off to another country for the express purposes of murder or labor slavery.
And since you seem incapable of making distinctions, let us set you straight about what we hate about France:
Pave hates the self-excusing but-but-but passing-the-buckism of France.
Pave hates a France that defames her own Republican values.
Pave hates French intrigues against the United States, its interests, and its allies. M. AB/AY, we hate a France that conspires and wishes for our ruin. Now why is that surprising?
You show up here and advertise yourself as anti-Brits/anti-Yanks, the French model of tolerance. You show up here and gleefully celebrate deaths and hardships in Iraq, the French model of compassion. You pretend to be France's champion, but you are not. You are her shame.
As for the rest -- French pretentions, French wilting, French crybabyism, the decline of France and her backward longing for the France of the 19th century -- we mock these. France has survived Rabelais, Daumier, La Baïonnette, Le Canard Enchainé, Les Guignols de l'info, and countless other French mocks. We do not think our mock will be the end of France.
DGB
the decline of France and her backward longing for the France of the 19th century -- we mock these.
"Decline" in terms of what Damian?
France has constistently ranked among the 4-6 largest economies in the world since WW1, has one of the lowest poverty rates worldwide (6%), is second largest agricultural exporter in the world behind the US and remains the most visited touristic destination in the world. In 2000, France surpassed the US in foreign investment (granted it's taken a nose-dive since). Not bad for a nation that represents a minuscule fraction of the world's population, wouldn't you agree?
As for "longing for the 19th century", I'm afraid the average Frenchmen is as much in the dark as his American counterpart in thinking that far in History, much less giving a toss.
M. Zmx,
More's the pity. Surely even a franchouille feels that France is not up to notch. That the grandeur that De Gaulle insisted France must attain, without which there is no France, that it simply isn't there.
Even the contemporary Republican is aware of 19th-century Napoleon, popularized in Les Cent jours by France's prime minister-cum-penny poet. Tell us that the French wouldn't trade up to Napoleon over Jack or Dom or any other contemporary French political mediocrity in a heartbeat.
French policies are decidedly 19th century -- sans the necessary military or economic might to influence or enforce. French market policy is a sort of Napoleonic mercantilism-cum-Colbert protectionism. French diplomacy employs Fouché-like duplicity, though without his successes. And every French leader since the second empire has called France to the "Grandeur de la France" of the first empire. Of course this is all upside Napoleon. One of Napoleon's enduring downside legacies was the ruin of France.
But the French prefer the sizzle to the steak itself, and Napoleon caught the world's attention in a way that no French leader has since. We believe this is the dominant cultural memory in France.
Modern France then is a nation of profound contradictions. She has the potential for greatness, yet has settled on being middling. She insists that grandeur is necessary to her cultural identity, yet she is never willing to risk much. What we can make out of France is that she is culturally tired, culturally cautious, and much prefers being half-liked and/or liked to being hated and/or admired. Perhaps that is a prudent course for a tired nation, but it is not program for doing great things.
So, yes, not bad. And more's the pity.
DGB
Bonjour,
@ Monsieur Benêt.
1)" As for Mr. Lindbergh he spoke in no government capacity".
Certes mais les USA étaient pro-nazis à l 'époque.
2) "The American government never shipped any of its citizens off to another country for the express purposes of murder or labor slavery."
Mensonge !!! Vous avez refoulé des centaines de milliers de Juifs qui sont tombés entre les mains de Hitler alors que la France qui était libre ,alors, les a accueillis (voir par exemple l'histoire du Saint-Louis:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=fr&ModuleId=98
)
3.)"Pave hates French intrigues against the United States, its interests,"
Vous êtes complètement parano ! La France vous avez prévenu que vous courriez à la catastrophe en Irak.Vous ne nous avez pas écouté.
Est ce notre faute si vous êtes INCAPABLES de faire ce que VOUS prétendiez faire ? .C'est-à-dire installer l' ordre en Irak.Vous êtes la RISEE du Monde entier.Le QUINCALLIER vous a trompé c'est tout:retournez-vous contre lui…
4)Votre Etat est une bureaucratie irresponsable.Le QUINCALLIER vous fait dépenser ,par exemple , 3.6 milliards de dollars (!!) pour la NSA et il a été incapable de vous protéger contre les islamistes du 11/9.
Prenez-en vous au QUINCALLIER et à ses acolytes.Pas à nous !!!
Good luck to ? your country in Irak !!
Bonjour,
Sur la SNCF et les trains de la mort:
J'ajoute que maître Arno Klarsfeld (qui est avocat aux barreau de Paris, New York et Californie) dans une longue tribune du quotidien "Le Monde" du 3 Juin disculpe totalement la SNCF des accusations portées contre elle.
Arno Klarsfeld est le fils de Beate et Serge Klarsfeld , deux personnes qui ont traqués les Nazis partout où ils se trouvaient.
De plus Serge Klarsfeld est fondateur de l 'association des "Fils et Filles des Déportés Juifs de France" et l'auteur de l ' admirable recension des 75000 victimes des lois exterminatrices allemandes.
Arno Klarsfeld sera l'avocat de la SNCF dans cette affaire devant la cour de New York qui apparaît de plus en plus comme un nouvel avatar des manipulations de l'anglosphère contre notre pays ,la France…
Good luck to (?) your country in Irak.
(Vous en aurez besoin:vous êtes dénoncé pour un nouveau My-Lai en Irak;le sinistre lieutenant Calley a trouvé des successeurs semble-t-il.D'ailleurs j'ai toujours trouvé ridicule cette fixation sur My-Lay:reprocher le meurtre de 500 personnes à un Etat qui en a tué 3 millions au Vietnam, c'est passablement l'arbre qui cache la forêt).
Speaking of uncompensated victims, Damian.
Oh, M. Zmx, don't you wish this were the worst France had to face.
Because you are a headline skimmer and not a critical thinker let us point out the obvious distinctions:
1. America deployed Agent Orange at the behest of the military agreements it had with the South Vietnamese government, with whom the responsibility for the health and safety of its citizens ultimately resided. Just as France in her collaborations with Nazi Germany was ultimately responsible for the health and safety of her citizens.
2. American deployment of Agent Orange was in the furtherance of military operations against a belligerent in the field, not, as in France's case, the complicity in the murder of her own citizens outsourced to an outside power. A view the French court has recently affirmed, though it could not bring itself to pronounce racist mass murder by France a "crime against humanity".
3. Agent Orange was not deployed with the objective of killing or harming South Vietnamese citizens. At the time it was not believed to pose dangerous health risks (both components of Agent Orange [2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T)] had been in wide commercial agricultural use for years). Agent Orange was deemed the least dangerous method to the citizenry for rooting out jungle-based belligerents. France, again as the French court has recently affirmed, employed the SNCF to transport her citizens to what was certain death, either immediately in gas chambers or death-by-labor.
4. Reparations paid by a belligerent are arranged in treaties contracted between the belligerents. Apparently the wily North Vietnamese let this slip through the cracks of the Paris Accords.
5. Because Vietnam under the Communists is one of the worst polluters in Asia, we surmise that establishing any deleterious effects related to Agent Orange from those that are the result of the native government's winking at air, water, ground water, and industrial pollutions and the general degradation of the environment for the past 30-odd years is next to impossible. Dioxins are found in cigarette smoke, diesel fumes, coal fired utilities, and residential wood burning -- all prevalent polluants and practices in Vietnam.
6. In a tort action it is for the plaintiff, scil., Vietnam, to provide evidence, not conjecture, to support their claim. It has not, and it problably never will.
The Center for Disease Control found that dioxin levels in Vietnam veterans were in no way atypical when compared against the rest of the population. The only exception existed for those who directly handled Agent Orange.
7. Finally -- unlike France, the responsible party who denying her responsibility has denied her help -- the United States, according to your article, is prepared to help:
"What we can do is make scientific information available, historical archival information we might have, ... technical advice on how to deal with the situation," the [U.S.] official said. "We're ready to do more. We agreed to sit down at the expert level and see what we can do," he said.
But for you and the franchouille crowd, America can never do enough, while France never need do anything at all.
Now, we leave you to skimming your headlines.
DGB
@ Monsieur Benêt
Bonjour,
Je suis en train de lire le numéro du "Scientific american" ("Pour la Science" en France) consacré au physicien allemand Max Planck.on y apprend par exemple que le ""grand"" industriel yanks Henry Ford finançait largement , DES LES ANNEES 1920 , un certain Paul Weyland.
Qui était Paul Weyland ?
Il est décrit par la revue comme un agitateur , "un criminel" , violemment antisémite , appelant aux meurtres des Juifs , un "protonazi" en quelque sorte.
Et maintenant nous voyons les compatriotes d' Henry Ford , 70 ans après , reprocher aux Français d'avoir succombés aux hordes nazies.
Quel indicible culot si l' argent des patrons américains finançait en 1920 - comme nous le dit le "Scientific american" - les agitateurs nazis allemands…
Good luck to ? your country in Irak !
Agent Orange was the nickname given to a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was used from 1961 to 1971, and was by far the most used of the so-called "rainbow herbicides" used during the program. Agent Orange (as well as Agents Purple, Pink, Blue, White, and Green) contained dioxins which are alleged to have caused harm to the health of those exposed during the Vietnam War. Studies of populations highly exposed to dioxin indicate increased risk of various types of cancer; the effect of long term low level exposure has not been established. Since the 1980s, several lawsuits have been filed against the companies who produced Agent Orange, among them being Dow Chemical and Monsanto. U.S. veterans obtained $180 million in compensation in 1984, while Australian, Canadian and New Zealand veterans also obtained compensation in an out-of-court settlement the same year. In 1999, 20,000 South Koreans filed a lawsuit in Korea; in January 2006, the Korean Appeal Court ordered Monsanto and Dow to pay $62 million in compensation to about 6,800 people. However, no Vietnamese have obtained compensation, and on March 10, 2005 Judge Jack Weinstein of Brooklyn Federal Court dismissed the lawsuit filed by the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange against the chemical companies that produced the defoliants/herbicides.
Peharps Damian - who probably has never been to Vietnam himself -could enlighten us on why were US soldiers and allies were compensated, but not the Vietnamese?
http://www.usvetdsp.com/agentorange.htm
Imagine if France had used Agent Orange in Vietnam and plagued by lawsuits, you can bet your life Mr Bennett would be the first to gleefully exploit this tragedy with the same pompous eloquence he is known for.
M. Zmx,
Read our above post for your answer. But you are not much of a reader are you? Here's a clue, see points 4-6. If you read carefully and slowly and think along the way, why you won't need to book passage to Vietnam, which you seem to think vital for an authentic answer.
And here you are all indignant and huffy because you can't score points on a topic you've introduced. It is a sure sign of your exhausted talents when you introduce "pompous" as an epithet for the opposition. Oh, boo hoo HOO, how we weep for your wounded equanimity.
Oh and now you are sensitive to the "glee". Funny we never once recall you taking M. AB/AY to task for his "gleeful" posts. But then, his "glee" is your "glee".
But wait! What is Agent Orange doing in a thread about France's deportation of French and non-French Jews and social undesirables to Nazi death camps in the first place? Well, M. Zmx prefers Agent Orange -- or really any brush he thinks will tar America -- to commenting on France's deportation of French and non-French Jews and social undesirables to Nazi death camps.
Oh, M. Zmx, a "pompous" French court has found the state of France and SNCF guilty. The judge probably has some free time, why not see if he can sort out your problems with Agent Orange.
DGB
U.S. veterans obtained $180 million in compensation in 1984, while Australian, Canadian and New Zealand veterans also obtained compensation in an out-of-court settlement the same year.
Is this too much for you to comprehend, Damian? Nothing like legal jargon to avoid the real issue, n'est-ce-pas?
But wait! What is Agent Orange doing in a thread about France's deportation of French and non-French Jews and social undesirables to Nazi death camps in the first place? Well, M. Zmx prefers Agent Orange -- or really any brush he thinks will tar America -- to commenting on France's deportation of French and non-French Jews and social undesirables to Nazi death camps.
Not so much the horrors of Agent Orange which of course you conveniently avoided, but the subject of compensations. You're apparently unaware that several US banks, Ford Motors and others were also slapped by lawsuits in the past. I thought would lead to an à propos discussion since Yahoo happened to mention the story. Instead, you foam at the mouth since I apparently touched a raw nerve. As for "commenting" on the deportation of French Jews (which included my "social undesirable" uncle with a one-way ticket to Buchenwald), yes Damian, I plead guilty for my country and I'm ashamed of it. You get a free popsicle for that one. Good boy.
Oh and now you are sensitive to the "glee". Funny we never once recall you taking M. AB/AY to task for his "gleeful" posts. But then, his "glee" is your "glee".
Ah yes of course. Funny you should whine about "gleeful posts" from someone posting on a deragotary website hosted by none other than yourself, Tartuffe .
