“I would like to congratulate the President of the French Republic, François Hollande, for the historical acknowledgement of the internment of French Gypsies (tsiganes), which he gave during the speech he made on 29 October 2016 in Montreuil-Bellay. He deserves credit for initiating, at the highest State level, the process for the reparation of this forgotten part of French history, and for officially acknowledging, 70 years after the liberation of the last internment camps for nomads, the Republic's responsibility in the tragic fate of these French citizens,” stated Valeriu Nicolae, Special Representative of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe for Roma Issues.
“President Hollande is right to acknowledge the State’s and the Republic’s responsibility. For those who would like to think that the internment of Gypsies was an act solely of the Vichy regime or the German occupiers, it can be pointed out that, before the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the Gypsies were already monitored and controlled in France, a process which began in 1912, and that house arrests were decreed for nomads in April 1940 by the last president of the Third Republic.[1] Under German occupation, the French authorities applied the Nazi decree of 4 October 1940, according to which every Gypsy had to be detained in camps managed by the French authorities. The Vichy Regime, following German orders, organised the detention of nomads and managed around thirty family camps where more than 6000 men, women, children and elderly people were crammed together, such as the camps in Montreuil-Bellay or Jargeau in the occupied zone or Saliers and Lannemezan in the unoccupied zone.[2]
Admittedly, French Gypsies were not deported to extermination camps as in other occupied countries, except for those from Alsace-Moselle, annexed to Nazi Germany, and those from the Nord and Nord-Pas-de-Calais départements which were annexed to the German military government of Brussels.[3] Nevertheless, their fate in French internment camps is unenviable: around one hundred of them died in the camps due to the squalid, inhumane conditions where famine, epidemics and all sorts of diseases ran rife. In denying them their freedom of movement, and therefore their freedom to travel, it was the essence of the Traveller culture itself (referred to as “nomad” at the time), and their identity, that were attacked with the clear aim of forced settlement. This can be seen from the fact that the last Gypsies were liberated from the last French internment camps only after the summer of 1946, one year after the armistice and nearly two years after the liberation of the majority of French territory. This time gap sadly distinguishes France from the rest of Europe.
The Council of Europe is pleased that France, following the examples set by Norway, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland, has decided to make public the atrocities committed against these population groups in the twentieth century.
I now call on the French Parliament so that, finally, the Gypsy genocide during the Nazi period can be acknowledged on behalf of the French people through their representatives and that a national day of remembrance for the victims can be established. Since 2007, three attempts have been made via the same private member’s bill,[4] tabled twice by members of the National Assembly and once by a Senator, but have unfortunately never come to fruition. French parliamentarians would do well to take the plunge and to join the too-small circle of national parliaments[5] that have acknowledged the Roma genocide and declared 2 August a national day of remembrance for the victims. This date was chosen by Roma organisations in memory of the 2897 Gypsies, including women and children, who perished on the night of 2 August 1944 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. After all, would this be such a risky step to take when German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt already recognised it as genocide on 17 March 1982? The European Parliament has also acknowledged, through a Resolution of 15 April 2014, the historical fact of the Roma genocide during the Second World War, as well as other forms of persecution, such as deportations and detentions, and asks EU Member States to do likewise. It has also suggested that 2 August be declared “European Roma Genocide Remembrance Day”.[6]
I fervently hope that the President of the Republic’s speech will also pave the way for an initiative by the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Research to introduce into French textbooks more extensive teaching of the history of Gypsies (Roma) and Travellers, particularly of their fate, and not exclusively during the Holocaust, but also their contribution to French history, especially during the Resistance.[7] The mere fact that it took seventy years for the French Republic to honour the memory of Gypsy victims and remind itself of that period, shows that there is still work to be done to fully recreate the memory, especially among young people, so that such atrocities will not be repeated. The Council of Europe can make available to the ministry and teachers its educational fact-sheets on the history of the Roma, which have already been translated into nine languages, including French.
Referring to the speech made by President Hollande in Montreuil-Bellay, the Council of Europe hopes that the 1969 law, which is discriminatory in a number of ways, as has been pointed out on several occasions by the Commissioner for Human Rights, will soon be repealed in the context of the examination of the bill on equality and citizenship scheduled this autumn.[8]
Only in this way can the French State make it possible for Travellers (gens du voyage) to exercise their citizenship as full-blown French citizens, which they indeed are, as President Hollande has just pointed out. Because, even if they are as of now recognised as internment camp victims, Gypsies and Travellers do not yet have equal rights and do not come under the general law.”
[1] Under the Third Republic, following the law of 16 July 1912, they were subjected to systematic registration and had to carry an anthropometric identity card. In 1939, only 13 days after France declared war, the Prefect of Indre-et-Loire took measures to expel “nomads” from the département. On 22 October 1939 General Vary forbade, by decree, the movement of nomads and travelling stallholders in eight départements in the west of France and put them under house arrest. On 6 April 1940, even before German occupation, Albert Lebrun, the last President of the Third Republic, issued a decree extending the house arrest measure to nomads living throughout metropolitan France. Internment could then be avoided only for financial reasons.
[2] A map of the Gypsy internment camps in occupied and unoccupied France
[3] According to Ian Hancock, 15000 of the 40000 French Gypsies were massacred during the Second World War.
[4] The same private member’s bill calling for recognition of the Roma genocide during the Second World War was tabled before the National Assembly on 15 February 2007 by the Deputy Frédéric Dutoit, in March 2008 by the Senator Robert Bret and on 10 October 2012 by the Deputy Jean-Jacques Candelier:
Article 1 :
France publically acknowledges the genocide of Gypsies perpetrated by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. This law will be implemented as a law of the State.
Article 2 :
Every year, on 5 April, France shall commemorate the memory of the victims of the Roma genocide of the Second World War.
[5] See the Resolution of the Ukrainian Parliament of 8 October 2004, the Declaration of the Hungarian Parliament of 2005, the Resolution of the Polish Parliament of 29 July 2011, and the Resolution of the Croatian Parliament of 12 December 2014.
[6] Press release by the European Parliament on 15 April 2015
[7] This type of teaching of the history of the Roma has already been introduced in some member States of the Council of Europe, including Hungary and Romania.
[8] Proposal for the repeal of the 1969 law, in particular the abolition of the travel permit (livret de circulation), tabled by Dominique Raimbourg, Deputy and President of the National Advisory Committee on Travellers.
