France and the Burdens of Vichy

Abstract

Since the mid-1970s, the Holocaust and the history of Vichy have come to occupy a major place in the national debate in France. However, only in the late 1990s, following the first public apology by a French president and the growing international awareness, did the French begin to investigate their behaviour in more systematic fashion. An understanding of the sources of French society’s interest in these subjects is a prerequisite for understanding the ramifications of the present debate on the spoliation of French Jewry and, more broadly, of the strategic position of the Jews in this debate, a debate with effects which go far beyond the limits of the question of Jewish property. The situation can be discussed at three different levels: party politics, the macrosociol-ogical reality of French society, and developments in the Jewish community. The study of these three factors provides the context in which the current debate about the fate of stolen Jewish property occurs.