French Nazi Collaborator Papon Buried French Nazi Collaborator Maurice Papon Buried With Legion of Honor Award, His Lawyer Says. Feb 21, 2007 French Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon was buried Wednesday with his Legion of Honor award, his lawyer said, even though he had earlier been stripped of the right to wear the decoration. Papon was barred from wearing France's highest distinction following his 1998 conviction on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in the arrest of Jews during World War II. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. ABC News: French Nazi Collaborator Papon Buried
Sarkozy may have said (in 2007) that "La France n'a jamais cédé à la tentation totalitaire. Elle n'a jamais exterminé un peuple...." but the French have certainly been heavily implicated in such attempts.... ....Giscard D'Estaing's finance minister in the 70s, De Gaulle's head of the Paris Police in the 60s, Guy Mollet's regional governor of Constantine, Algeria, during the Algerian War in the late 1950s, responsible for the deportation of Jews and the torture and murder of Muslims both in Algera and France....another civil servant "just" carrying out the orders of the state... Maurice Papon, itinéraire d'un h - A Video PlayList on Dailymotion
France's position has evolved a lot about these matter in the 2000s. Former president Chirac has publicly admitted the responsability of the Vichy Goverment and several commemorative monuments are inaugurated nowadays with mentions deported by the French Police , Milice etc... See just one example , Revanche sur l'oubli | Ville d'Ivry-sur-Seine : site officiel I have many others. I also wish other states had the maturity to admit their guilt in Crimes against Humanity. (Japan in Nankin, Soviet Russia , Turkey during WWI come to mind)
All too true Skipper, not as on a grand scale as you listed we in the US we chave our own black periods as well. It is especially disappointing when as a nation you aspire to such high goals and yet tragicly fall far short of them when you need them the most.
A lot has to be done yet, but there have been some great improvements since the times in the 1950s when Gendarmes on pictures were cut out. With the exception of Germany itself, I'm not sure many nations have gone this far in accepting guilt. The times of exagerating the good to occult the bad is now gone. It does not mean only the truth comes out and we must remain vgilant regarding revisionism, but it would be unfair to not acknowledge efforts made by successive Goverments. This has made close ties between Germany and France .
