Le Pen denies French responsibility in wartime Jewish arrests

PanARMENIAN.Net - 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 Two, Reuters reports.

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," Le Pen said in a French media interview on Sunday, April 9, 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," 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 criticize France, to see only the darkest historical aspects perhaps. I want them to be proud of being French once more," she said in the interview with media organizations Le Figaro, RTL and LCI.

France has long struggled to come to terms with its role under the collaborationist Vichy regime during World War Two.

Altogether 76,000 Jews deported from France were killed.