Translation of speech by French President Jacques Chirac, July 16, 1995 :

"These black hours will stain our history for ever and are an injury to our past and our traditions. We the French, the French state helped the occupant carry out its criminal madness.

"Fifty-three years ago, on 16 July 1942, 4500 policemen and gendarmes, French, under the authority of their leaders, obeyed the demands of the Nazis.

"... France, home of the Enlightenment and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, land of welcome and asylum, France committed that day the irreparable. Breaking its word, it delivered those it protected to their executioners.

“Delivered to the Vélodrome d'hiver, victims were made to wait in terrible conditions, then led to one of the transit camps … opened by the Vichy authorities.

“… Today the young want to know what happened during the Shoah.  They’re not alone; more and more French men and women are determined to face up to the reality of their past.”