Internment camps in France
Then, after the 10 July 1940 vote of full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain and the proclamation of the État français (Vichy regime), these camps were used to intern Jews, Gypsies, and various political prisoners (anti-fascists from all countries).
The first internment camps were opened during the First World War (1914–1918) to detain civilian prisoners (mainly German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman).
Furthermore, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who had been named Consul in Paris for Immigration, organized the transportation to Chile of 2,200 Spanish refugees who had been detained in the camps on board the Winnipeg, which departed on 2 August 1939, and arrived in Valparaíso at the beginning of September 1939.
[9] During the 1944 Battle of Marseille and urban scaping operations[clarify] in the center of town, 20,000 people were expelled from their homes and interned during several months in military camps nearby Fréjus (La Lègue, Caïs and Puget).
[2]: 129 The camp of Struthof, or Natzweiler-Struthof, in Alsace, one of the concentration camps created by Nazis on annexed French territory, included a gas chamber which was used to kill at least 86 detainees (mostly Jewish) with the aim of forming a collection of preserved skeletons for the use of Nazi professor August Hirt.
Although not architecturally conceived as an internment camp, the Vel' d'Hiv (Winter Velodrome) in Paris was used during the July 1942 Roundup.
[citation needed] Internment camps were used to receive French from Indochina following the end of the Indochina War in 1954,[2]: 125–126 as well as approximatively 9,000 Hungarian refugees following the Budapest insurrection of 1956 (in Annecy, Colmar—Caserne Valter—, in Gap, in Le Havre, in Metz—Caserne Raffenel, in Montdauphin, in Montluçon—Caserne de Richemond—, in Nancy (camp de Chatelleraud), in Poitiers, in Rennes, in Rouen, in Strasbourg—caserne Stirn—and in Valdahon).
[2]: 125–126 Humanitarian concerns largely intertwined with repressive aims, and internment restrictions and assistance given to populations varied widely (Hungarian refugees were better treated than French from Indochina[2]: 125–126 ).
Within Algeria, the colonial administration used a form of camps as a counter-insurgency tactic, with up to 2 million civilians being internally deported in villages de regroupement[2]: 127 ) to prevent their falling under the influence of the opposing FLN forces.
In France, some camps used under Vichy were opened again, in Paris in particular, to hold suspected FLN and other Algerian independentists.
