Judging War Crimes and Torture : French Justice and International Criminal Tribunals and Commissions (1940-2005) | WorldCat.org (original) (raw)

Summary:France, as other democracies, has not always kept up to the high standards expected from the ""homeland of human rights"". Its colonial past, now over, shows that its expressed ""civilizing mission"" was tainted with military exactions, economic and religious abuses, denounced by a few courageous groups and individuals, and revealed in a few public trials. The Vichy government's willing participation in anti-Jews persecution during the German occupation of France was ignored or denied until trials (Barbie, Touvier, Papon) brought to light these unpleasant facts in the 1990s. France's participa