He also drew parallels with the situation in Bosnia, where Serbs were carrying out “ethnic cleansing” against Muslims, and called on nations “not to accept being silent witnesses or accomplices to the unacceptable.”
The world had to “heed the lessons of history,” Mr Chirac said, referring to his call last week for partners to join France in a military action to secure safe areas in Bosnia against Serb advances.
Speaking on the issue of the Vel d’Hiv deportations, he said: “There are moments in the life of a nation that hurt the memory and the view one has of one’s country... These dark hours soil forever our history and are an injury to our past and our traditions. Yes, the criminal folly of the [German] occupier was assisted by the French, by the French state.”
In all, about 75,000 Jews were deported from France during the war. Only 2,500 survived. Thousands were saved by ordinary citizens.
Mr Chirac added that on the day of the round-up, “one could see atrocious scenes: families torn apart, mothers separated from their children, old people — some of whom had shed blood for France during the First World War — thrown without care into the back of buses and lorries by Paris police.
“France, the nation of enlightenment and human rights, land of welcome and asylum, accomplished the irreparable. Betraying its word, it delivered its dependents to their executioners.” France owed a debt of atonement that could never be properly repaid, he said.
Veteran Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld hailed what he described as Mr Chirac’s “courage.” His words were “an historic statement and what we had hoped to hear one day,” he said.
Henri Hajdenberg, the president of Crif, the representative body of French Jewry, said: “It is a turning point. It is, finally, looking the truth in the face, lifting the veil.”
President Chirac was also praised by German Jewish leader Ignatz Bubis, who expressed surprise at his statement and suggested other nations should follow his example.
Mr Bubis told German radio: “This collaboration actually took place in all countries occupied by Hitler’s Germany, with the exception of Denmark and Bulgaria,” he said.
“But such a clear admission as that from Mr Chirac has otherwise come only from the Dutch queen. So I am surprised,” Mr Bubis added.
France’s about-face has been a gradual process. The first French citizen, Paul Touvier, was convicted of crimes against humanity last year, for his role during the execution of seven Jewish hostages during the war.
Mr Mitterrand — booed at the 50th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv roundup — last year dedicated a monument at the site of the cycle track, razed in 1959, and made the anniversary a national day of commemoration.
Former deportation victims were at Sunday’s ceremony, along with representatives of the Jewish community and religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, a Jew who converted to Roman Catholicism.
In the southern French city of Toulon, where the new mayor is a member of the far-right National Front, communal leaders boycotted commemorations of the deportations. Activists of the French Union of Jewish Students replaced a wreath laid by the mayor, Jean-Marie Le Chevallier, with one of their own.
