French President promises to fight anti-Semitism

Today France commemorated the 70th anniversary of the mass arrest of Jewish people designated for deportation to the Nazi concentration camps. The Associated Press reports that on this occasion French President François Hollande has promised to fight anti-Semitism.

On 16 and 17 July 1942, French Police arrested as many as 13 000 Jewish people and detained them at a covered bicycling stadium in Paris, the Vélodrome d’Hiver. Thousands of children, men and women were later transported to their deaths in the Nazi camp Auschwitz.

Hollande, who is a member of the Socialist Party, reminded the audience during today’s commemorative ceremony that this crime is on the conscience of the French people. “During this entire operation not a single German soldier had to be mobilized,” Hollande said. He also expressed appreciation for former French President Jacques Chirac, who in 1995 was the first to admit the role of the state in the persecution of Jewish people in France.

Hollande also recalled the assassination committed in March by the extremist Mohammed Merah in Toulouse. Merah murdered a rabbi and three Jewish children there. “Four months ago, they died for the same reason the people in the Vélodrome d’Hiver died – because they were Jewish,” the president said.