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Published on 3 January 2016
France opens archives on wartime Vichy regime
Published in the Guardian December 28, 2015
France has opened its official archives on the Vichy government, which collaborated with the Nazi occupation during World War II, making information such as the activities of special police who hunted resistants, communists and Jews accessible to the public, as long as they have been cleared by defence and security chiefs. Few major revelations are expected, however.
The history of Marshal Philippe Pétain's collaborationist regime is still a sensitive subject in France.
The French state's complicity in the deportation of 76,000 Jews was only officially recognised in 1995 by then-president Jacques Chirac and the state-run rail network, the SNCF, was forced to pay compensation for having transported Jews by a campaign in the US in 2014.
Now the Socialist government has authorised the opening of archives that were supposed to have remained officially closed for 75 years - five years early for the oldest ones.
Files dating from as late as 31 December 1960 are also covered by the ruling, as long as they relate to events that took place between September 1939 and May 1945.
Documents concerning the prosecution of war criminals in France, Germany and Austria and cases taken before military and maritime tribunals may now be viewed... Read more.