French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said on Sunday that France is not responsible for the 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv round-up, in which more than 13,000 Jews were arrested to be deported to Nazi concentration camps.

A third of the group were children.

“I think France is not responsible for the Vel’ d’Hiv,” Ms Le Pen said during an interview on RTL radio. “I think in a general way, more generally actually, those responsible were those in power then, this is not France.”

On the 16th and 17th of July 1942, French police officers arrested more than 13,000 Jews in and around Paris at the request of the Nazi authorities and stationed them in the Drancy’s cycle racing arena known as Vel d’Hiv, before deporting them to concentration camps.

In July 1995, French president Jacques Chirac apologised for the action and admitted the responsibility of the French state, contradicting a previous official line according to which the authorities based in Vichy during the second World War did not represent the true country.

“France has been mistreated in minds for years,” Ms Le Pen said. “In reality, our children have been taught they had every reason to criticise it, to see only its darkest aspects. I want them to be proud to be French again.”

For months polls have shown Ms Le Pen, leader of the right-wing Front National, on track to reach the second-round of France’s 2017 presidential election.

Bloomberg