French president says Alsatians forced to fight with Nazis weren't traitors to France
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COLMAR, France — French President Nicolas Sarkozy, commemorating the World War II victory over Nazi Germany, says that Alsatians forced to fight alongside the Nazis were not traitors to France.
Sarkozy says that it is France's Vichy regime that collaborated with Nazi Germany that "betrayed" and "dishonoured" France.
Sarkozy says he chose the Alsatian town of Colmar to mark Saturday's 65th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe because the people of Alsace and Moselle still have a "secret wound."
He said, "I came to Alsace to repair an injustice."
Germany annexed the eastern regions of Alsace and Moselle in 1940. By 1942, some 130,000 Alsatians were forced to enrol in the German army, and 30,000 killed and 10,000 disappeared.