Country resources
This page allows you to filter all the information contained in the country factsheet by themes and countries.
For instance, if you wish to have specific details about the recognition of the Roma Holocaust in any specific country, you can easily access this information by selecting the theme and the country.
Remembrance day
French schools take part in special activities to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. An annual bulletin encourages the educational community to get involved in commemoration days, in particular the Memorial Day on 27 January and the Day of the Resistance on 27 May.
No remembrance day is observed for the Roma Genocide in French schools.
In 1954, France established the last Sunday of April as a day to commemorate the victims of National Socialism. The official ceremony, which begins at the Shoah Memorial (Mémorial de la Shoah), commemorates all deportations during World War II, including those of Roma and homosexuals.France officially commemorates the Jewish victims of the Holocaust on the Sunday closest to 16 July. The memorial day is called the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Racist and Anti-Semitic Crimes of the So-Called “Government of the French State”, and in Homage to the Righteous among the Nations from France (Journée nationale à la mémoire des victimes des crimes racistes et antisémites de l’État français et d’hommage aux Justes de France). The day commemorates the rounding up of Jews in the Vélodrome d’Hiver, a former cycle track in Paris, on 16 and 17 July 1942 – the biggest round-up of Jews that took place on French territory during World War II. The day was officially introduced by President François Mitterrand on 3 February 1993. In addition to these official events, the Holocaust is commemorated on numerous other occasions related to historical events, such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising commemorated during Yom HaShoah. Remembrance activities also take place around 27 January, the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.
In 1997, for the first time, the French President, Jacques Chirac, made a reference to Roma victims of the Nazi persecution during a remembrance ceremony dedicated to victims of deportation.
In October 2010, a law proposal, Proposition de loi n°273, was presented in front of the National Assembly stating the official recognition of the Genocide of the Roma and setting the official commemoration of this genocide on 5 April.
In 2013, French President François Hollande acknowledged the State responsibility in the internment of Roma from 1940 to 1946 during a tribute ceremony in Montreuil-Bellay, one of the 31 camps managed by Vichy regime.