French protest a Nazi-like EU

[TonyGosling]

Protests, Arrests As France's Vichy Hosts EU Conference

Excerpt from 'Protests, Arrests As France's Vichy Hosts EU Conference'
AFP, 3 November 2008

Protesters descended on the town of Vichy Monday as the shamed capital
of France's former pro-Nazi dictatorship hosted its first
international government conference since World War II.
Vichy's municipal leaders hoped that by finally hosting European
ministers 64 years after the fall of Marshall Petain's regime they
could shake off their wartime stigma and become a popular spa resort
once more.

But several busloads of militants had other ideas, and turned up to
protest a conference called to discuss the integration of ethnic
minorities in Europe, with some linking current French policy to that
of the fascist past.

Police made at least four arrests as the protests began, and 100
officers equipped with riot gear set up a cordon around the venue to
prevent the first 80 militants, from a radical splinter group, from
approaching.

This group, dubbing themselves 'The disobedient,' draw an explicit
link between Vichy France, which deported Jews to Nazi death camps,
and President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, which has cracked down on
illegal immigration. A larger protest planned for later in the day by
mainstream antiracist groups has promised to be less provocative and
to call for social unity.

The four protesters to be arrested were wearing striped prison
uniforms designed to recall those of the Holocaust concentration
camps.

"We denounce the worrying evolution of European migration policies,
which recall the ideas that led to deportations at the end of the
1930s," declared the leader of the smaller, hardline group, Xavier
Renou.

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[cem]