Admitting the mistakes is the only gateway to healing wounds.
Marine Le Pen, the National Front candidate for the French presidential election, shocked us when she denied French state’s responsibility for the mass arrest of Jews in Paris during World War Two. During the Nazi occupation the French police carried out, under the orders of the collaborationist regime of Vichy, more than 13,000 arrests of Jews. The number of people included about 4,000 children who were detained and sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Admitting criminal responsibility
Perhaps Marine Le Pen, has forgotten that in 1995, President Jaques Chirac, recognized for the first time the responsibility of France, admitting that the criminal insanity of the Nazi invaders was supported by the French State. He stated that France had a debt that would not prescribe with the Jewish people. However, Marine Le Pen, Chirac, Hollande, or any other French president, monarch, or republic, has never recognized the genocide perpetrated against thousands of people in Occitania. Occitania was one of the territories seized by force during the thirteenth century and it is known today as the French Midi.
Albigensian crusade
The collaborationist government of France during the 13th century was a monarchy. During the Albigensian crusade, the barons under Pope Innocent III sowed and executed barbarism and terror. The invaders attacked Occitania destroying and burning entire cities and systematically exterminating the Occitan people without distinction Age, sex or religion. One horrible example of the many atrocities committed by the French happened in the town of Besiers, where on July 21, 1209, more than 8,000 innocents were exterminated. Most of the victims were women, elderly and Catholic children.
Still waiting for the apology
Eight hundred years after, we are still waiting for the France government´s apology to the Occitan people. The criminal responsibility of the invaders of Occitània, supported by the French, is still not condemned or forgotten.
Janus
Short but sound. The extent of Occitania on the map is quite underestimated. Other killings were perpetrated for instance against the Waldensians in Provence years after.
Let me add that almost all the candidates (from Le Pen to Mélenchon) running for the presidency in France are just denying the Occitan people and language.