A PROMINENT French Nazi hunter yesterday announced the discovery of an original document he said proves that Vichy leader Marshal Philippe Pétain sought to make stringent restrictions on Jews even harsher.
Pétain, a first World War hero, set up a collaborationist French regime in the spa town of Vichy after the military defeat of France by Nazi Germany in 1940.
Announcing the discovery of what he described as an official memo amended by Pétain's hand in October 1940, lawyer Serge Klarsfeld said it established that the wartime leader had a "decisive role" in drawing up restrictions on Jews "in the most aggressive way".
While the original set out to exclude "descendants of Jews born French or naturalised before 1860", Pétain crossed out this reference, thus applying the measures to all Jews in France. The scope of Jews' exclusion is also widened, with them being barred from jobs in teaching and the judiciary.
"The main argument of Pétain's defenders was to say that he protected French Jews. This argument has now fallen," Mr Klarsfeld suggested. The document came to light after an anonymous donor handed it in to the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, he added.
Historians writing about Pétain's anti-Semitism regularly cite the testimony of Vichy foreign minister Paul Baudouin. In a book published in 1946, Baudouin wrote that during a cabinet meeting on October 1st, 1940, the government spent two hours examining "the status of the Israelites. It was the marshal who was the most severe. He insisted notably that there should be no Jews in the judiciary or education." Mr Klarsfeld said, "Baudouin's testimony was very clear but doubt could be cast on it. Now, we have definite proof that the Jews' status was the personal will of Marshal Pétain."
Although Vichy's collaboration in deportations has been long documented, for decades France's memory of the war was dominated by the popular portrayal of the country as a nation of resisters.
Former president Jacques Chirac became the first high-ranking official to admit France's role, in July 1995. Mr Chirac apologised for "the dark hours which will forever tarnish our history" and regretted "the criminal insanity of the occupying power was assisted by . . . the French state ".
Last year, the council of state formally recognised the responsibility of the French in the deportation of 76,000 Jews to Nazi death camps between 1942 and 1944.
Fewer than 3,000 survived.