Indeed, former French President Jacques Chirac won a place in French history by proclaiming France’s responsibility for the crimes committed by the collaborationist Vichy government against its Jewish citizens during the Nazi occupation. The fiction, popularized by General Charles de Gaulle and pursued by François Mitterrand, that “Vichy was not France” had finally been interred.
请求宽恕的行为使一个人能使用说出真相所需的自由表达权利，毫不含糊地与“他人”对话。事实上法国前总统希拉克就因此在法国历史上赢得了自己的一席之地，因为他正式承认了法国维希政府在纳粹占领期间对其犹太公民所犯下的罪行，从而使“维希并非法国”这个由戴高乐始发并被密特朗进一步推广的荒谬说法彻底破产。