"France had acted in an exemplary way in terms of Holocaust remembrance and reparations" is simply a lie. France's deep hidden within racism and fascist sentiment is still there for anyone to say, just few scratches on the surface will reveal it. I couldnt find it in me to blame a single French company like France`s rail company for what happened when the whole the Nazi collaborator French establishment was behind the idea of killing Jews.due to French Nazi Sympathizers and collaborators were never investigated let alone put on trial. The French as usual preferred to cover up that shameful part of their history just as they did in the Algerian war of liberation where they slaughter more than one million and half of innocent Algerians. Even in the Klaus Barbie case one saw endless foot-dragging.
In addition, France has yet to return numerous properties to their Jewish owners including high value properties in Paris.
But facts and historic responsibility don't stop the French getting on the soap-box about everyone else, especially Israel for the sake of securing French investments and contract in the Arab world.
Renaud Sarda
here is the article bellow;
France's state-owned rail company has made a belated apology for hauling thousands of Jews to their deaths in Nazi camps, after US politicians threatened its chances of winning lucrative contracts.
Thousands of young French Jews were transported by SNCF during the Holocaust
Until recently, SNCF insisted it had been forced by France's World War II German occupiers to help deport 75,000 French Jews to the gas chambers, and noted that 2,000 of its own rail workers were executed.
But, with SNCF and its main train-builder Alstom seeking work in the US, the company's chairman Guillaume Pepy met politicians and Jewish community groups in Florida to express his regret.
According to an SNCF spokesman, Mr Pepy told them he wished to express "his profound pain and regret for the consequences of acts ... carried out under order".
Last August, Mr Pepy opened SNCF archives to American historians and said that he took concerns over the company's role "very seriously" - but stuck to the firm's line that it had been "acting under the Nazi yoke".
French rail firm SNCF hopes to win lucrative US train contracts
The issue had been taken up by politicians in the US, where big contracts for proposed high-speed rail lines have been linked to firms' historic behaviour.
In California, politician Bob Blumenfield passed a state law requiring companies bidding on the contract to reveal their role in prisoner transport between 1942 and 1944.
A similar law has been proposed at federal level and although SNCF is not mentioned by name, both clearly target the firm seeking to export France's world class TGV technology.
"It's an obvious step towards establishing historical truth," said Alain Lipietz, a former member of the European parliament who sued SNCF on behalf of four family members hauled to their deaths on French trains.
Trains took victims towards Auschwitz and other concentration camps
"But what's regrettable is the fact that he did what he did in the United States solely to improve his position in a contract negotiation, and not in order to ensure that it doesn't happen again one day."
For his part, France's senior human rights official Francois Zimeray accused protectionist politicians in the United States of exploiting the issue to exclude French products from US markets.
"I encourage SNCF to face up to this page in its history, and to break down any myths," he added, insisting that France had acted in an exemplary way in terms of Holocaustremembrance and reparations.
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