France still haunted by Nazi past
BERLIN -- Maurice Papon, an infamous French Nazi collaborator, died Saturday in a Paris hospital at the age of 96. How France dealt with the man is exemplary for how the country continues to deal with dark chapters of its past.
A leading official in the Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazis during France's occupation in World War II, Papon had personally organized the deportation of 1,690 Jews in southwestern France...Yet after the war, Papon embarked on a successful career in French politics. Before the end of the Nazi occupation, he had established contacts with resistance leaders, who vouched for him after the war. He served as a prefect in Algeria, served as the Paris police chief, then became a lawmaker; and later, from 1978 until 1981, was finance minister under Prime Minister Raymond Barre and President Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
For decades, France was unwilling to deal with its Vichy past. Yet in 1981, a son of a man who died in a German concentration camp found documents showing that Papon had signed the man's deportation order, and several hundred more. It was not until 1995 however that President Jacques Chirac first acknowledged that France bore criminal responsibility for what officials like Papon had done during the Nazi occupation...
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A leading official in the Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazis during France's occupation in World War II, Papon had personally organized the deportation of 1,690 Jews in southwestern France...Yet after the war, Papon embarked on a successful career in French politics. Before the end of the Nazi occupation, he had established contacts with resistance leaders, who vouched for him after the war. He served as a prefect in Algeria, served as the Paris police chief, then became a lawmaker; and later, from 1978 until 1981, was finance minister under Prime Minister Raymond Barre and President Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
For decades, France was unwilling to deal with its Vichy past. Yet in 1981, a son of a man who died in a German concentration camp found documents showing that Papon had signed the man's deportation order, and several hundred more. It was not until 1995 however that President Jacques Chirac first acknowledged that France bore criminal responsibility for what officials like Papon had done during the Nazi occupation...