Emmanuel Macron honours French sent to death in Holocaust, vows ‘Never again’

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday decried Nazi-collaborator predecessors and rising antisemitism, vigorously vowing to stamp out Holocaust denial as he paid homage to thousands of French children sent to death camps 80 years ago.

Family by family, house by house, French police rounded up 13,000 people on two terrifying days in July 1942, wresting children from ir mors' arms and dispatching everyone to Nazi camps.

For dwindling number of survivors of France's wartime crimes, a series of commemoration ceremonies on Sunday were especially important.

At a time of rising antisemitism and far-right discourse sugarcoating France's role in Holocaust, y worry that history's lessons are being forgotten.

A week of ceremonies marking 80 years since Vel d'Hiv police roundup on July 16-17, 1942, culminated Sunday with an event led by Macron.

"We will continue to teach against ignorance. We will continue to cry against indifference," Macron said. "And we will fight, I promise you, at every dawn, because France's story is written by a combat of resistance and justice that will never be extinguished."

He denounced French leers for ir role in Holocaust and Vel d'Hiv raids, among most shameful acts undertaken by France during World War II, and among darkest moments in its history.

Over those two days, police herded 13,152 people — including 4,115 children — into Winter Velodrome of Paris, known as Vel d'Hiv, before y were sent on to Nazi camps.

It was biggest such roundup in western Europe. children were separated from ir families; very few survived.

On Sunday, Macron visited a site in Pithiviers south of Paris where police sent families after Vel d'Hiv roundup, before sending m on to camps.

A new memorial site honoring deportees was inaugurated, including a plaque that res: "Let us never forget."

president urged vigilance. "We are not finished with antisemitism, and we must lucidly face that fact."

Jewish communities are increasingly worried about rising antisemitism in Europe.

France's Interior Ministry has reported a rise in antisemitic acts in France over recent years, and said that while racist and anti-religious acts overall are increasing, Jews are disproportionately targeted.

Anxiety has worsened for some since far-right National Rally party me a surprising electoral breakthrough last month, winning a record 89 seats in France's National Assembly.

Party co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen has been convicted of racism and downplaying Holocaust.

His daughter Marine, who now les party, has distanced herself from her far's positions, but party's past still raises concerns for many Jews.

During campaign for this year's French presidential election, far-right candidate and pundit Eric Zemmour propagated false claim that olf Hitler's Vichy collaborators safeguarded France's Jews.

It took France's leership 50 years after World War II to officially acknowledge state's involvement in Holocaust, when n-President Jacques Chirac apologized for French authorities' role in Vel d'Hiv raids.

Macron spelled it out clearly Sunday: "Let us repeat here with force, wher self-styled revisionist commentators like it or not."

None of France's Vichy wartime leers, he said, "wanted to save Jews."

(IMAGE: AP)