STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

France: The Miscreant Sanctuary of Foreign Refugees and Inhumane Internment Camps.

Starting in WWI to the Algerian Wars and to Present Day…
The recent attack on Paris was clearly reprehensible but not unique nor unexpected. This is in contrast to Hollande’s public statements, of course. France’s bucolic landscape of wine, cheese and quaint villages, is littered with remnants of internment/concentration camps that, at one time or another, contained French Communists/ French Resistance Fighters, Austrians, Gypsies, Jews of all nationalities, Algerians, Germans, Americans, Muslims, Kurds, et. al.

Please know that as we hear today’s well publicized French laissez-faire/joie de vivre attitudes, the truth is far different;  and far more insidious and nefarious.  For well over one hundred years, France and its various forms of ruling government have created countless efficient internment camps to house their own citizens or those who dared to defy the ruler of the state. Unbeknownst to the world and probably most of the French students, the great French Republic has had an impressive history of creating internment camps for those who oppose the whimsical political fashions of the day implemented by the various ruling elites. 

As far back as WWI, France has developed the following internment/ concentration camps:

▪ WWI- Germans, Austrian, and Ottoman prisoners were all interned in the department of Mayenne, Fort-Barreaux in Isere.

▪ 1920’s/30’s- Armenians were placed in camps located in Marseille [Mirabeau Camp].  

▪ 1912- Gypsies were rounded up into camps at Arc-et-Senans.

▪ 1930’s- Camp de concentratio d’Argeles-Sur-Mer used to intern the Spanish Republican refugees who fled Spain’s Civil War. (I grew up in Toulouse with some of these Spanish internees who would describe to me in detail the horrific nature of Franco’s regime and the ensuing battles between brothers.)

Here is some more history:

On August 20, 1941, the French Vichy government ordered their police to assist the Nazi Gestapo in rounding up 75,000 French Jews who were sent to Dracy; and then 4,000 or more, were eventually deported to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp where they were slaughtered. There were other Jewish Camps in Austerlitz, Levitan and Bassano. The only real French created “extermination camp” was created at Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace Province, near the German border.

The French police under President Petain were incredibly adept in incarcerating their own people who tried to resist the Nazi regime. These were the brave French men/women who were part of the Communist French Party [PCF]. Most of them were executed at Aincourt; in Seine-et-Oise, on October 5, 1940. In the suburbs of my city, Toulouse, many of the resistance fighters [whom I had met in my youth] were tortured by the French police at Recebedou in the Haut-Garonne region. Yet real “piece de resistance” was the camp located at Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe Toulouse where the French police learned to become proficient in water-boarding, torture, and brutal forms of death.  This camp had the unique reputation for interning ‘militant communists’[translated anti-Nazi French/Polish/Russian/ Jewish/Catholic Resistance Fighters]. If they did not die there, they were then deported back to Eastern Europe, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald where they met their fate.

For most of my childhood, I listened carefully to the stories of those brave Christian/Jewish Toulouse resistance fighters who managed to survive, for one reason or another. Yet there is more to that story then most people know. Innocent Americans/British civilians who happen to be visiting France during the outbreak of the “Real War” were summarily detained at Besancon in the Doubs; Saint-Denis, near Paris; and Vittel, [Frontstalag 121] near the spa in Epinal in the Vosges department. There was no attempt to repatriate them during the war; despite the fact that they were innocent of any malfeasance.

Similarly, the Vichy, Pro-Nazi French Government, also created in both their overseas colonies-- Algeria and Morocco-- internment camps for Jews, Communists, Muslims, Christians, at the following sites:

• Algeria:  Abadia, Bechar, Bogari, Bourafa Djefa, Kenadsa, Meridja.

• Morocca: Missour, Tendrara.

As if the aforementioned camps were not sufficient examples of French brutality and indifference to human life; then they achieve the apex of their barbarity in  the French/Algerian War lasting from 1954-1962 where they practiced all the statecraft of torture/isolation/ waterboarding at ‘camps de regroupement’ [regrouping camps] all over Algeria. 

This elaborate, extensive prison system had incarcerated over two million innocent Algerian citizens in order to ‘PREVENT THEM’ from falling under the influence of the FLN Forces [indigenous Algerian opposition forces]. On March 19, 1962, another group of internment camps [separate from the ones above] were disbanded; releasing thousands of “Harkis” [Algerians who fought on the French side]. In 1980, the Kurdish refugees who fought in Iraq were also released from some other internment camps. 

I have presented you with a brief glimpse into what the French mean when espouse the following nonsensical verbiage: Fraternity, Equality, and Liberty. To state the obvious: in war, France is both inept and cowardly. Yet in peace, they are the masters of deceit and mass incarceration and torture. 

President Hollande decried the horrible, inexcusable terrorist attacks in Paris. Perhaps, it behooves such a professional card-carrying socialist to understand that the Paris attacks are a delayed reaction to the insidiously lethal draconian policies that France had carried out secretly while outwardly espousing liberty and freedom for all people. France might want to understand that terrorism does not arise in and of itself. Terrorism is simply a technique which is used by those who have been haunted by the injustices of the past.

It’s important that you look to the past for the answers to your future course of actions against the terrorism that had just transpired in November 13, 2015. Now ISIS and others who lived under French oppression, will attempt to correct that imbalance of justice.

Bonne Chance! Good luck! .. France!