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France to make amends to orphans of occupation

France is to compensate the children of World War II resistance members killed for opposing the German occupation, the government announced at the weekend.

The payments will be made to between 5,000 and 8,000 people whose parents were "victims of Nazi barbarity," including those killed in massacres, those rounded up and shot by collaborating officials, and those deported to concentration camps for their resistance activities.

The compensation is identical to that granted three years ago to 12,600 Jewish orphans whose parents were deported and killed in extermination camps during the 1940-44 occupation.

Of the more than 76,000 French Jews sent to German camps during the war by the collaborationist extended to other "orphans of victims of Nazi barbarity."

The announcement follows a campaign by children of non-Jewish victims of the regime, who argued that it was wrong that they should not also be compensated for their loss.

France was slow to accept state responsibility for the atrocities facilitated by its officials during occupation. The former president Francois Mitterrand, who was a civil servant for the collaborationist government, insisted for most of his 14 years as president that delving into the history of the Vichy administration would pose a threaten to civil order.

Until the 1980s school textbooks glossed over the role played by France in the death of Jews.

Jacques Chirac, Mitterrand's successor, was the first president to face up to France's war guilt, publicly condemning Vichy as a criminal regime and calling for reparations.

Admitting France's "criminal" complicity in the deportations, he said in 1995: "These dark hours have sullied our history forever and are an insult to our past and traditions."

To be eligible for compensation, applicants must have lost one or both parents when they were children during World War II.

Recipients will be offered the choice of either a 27,400 euros lump sum or monthly payments of 457 euros for life, the office for war veterans said.

The money will be distributed as soon as officials have established how many people should receive it.
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