VICHY, C’ETAIT AUSSI LA FRANCE?

I go to the local “tabac” every morning to buy the newspaper. I usually buy “Le Monde” but occasionally I will also buy another paper to see the difference in style. I find I can read “Liberation” without too much trouble but the colloquial language of “Figaro” is harder for me to understand.
“Le Monde” has published a number of articles in the last few weeks that are lighter fare for the summer. Right now there is a series about different world airports and their role in “mondialisation”. Today, Moscow’s three airports were featured, yesterday it was London’s Heathrow, and before that articles about Lagos and Amsterdam. Two weeks ago there was a series about the great battles that shaped various religions – Kerbala for the Shiites, Jerusalem for the Christians, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain for Catholics, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre for the Protestants of France, and the slaughter of Hindus by Muslims, Muslims by Hindus that led to the partition of India (really, the partition of the Punjab and Bengal).
Today, as part of the series “Rétrocontroverse” there is an article retracing the discussion between Chirac and Mitterrand about the culpability of the French State in the deportations and murder of French Jews. Chirac argued the neo-Gaullist line that the Vichy State was criminally responsible for these murders but that France was redeemed by the triumph of DeGaulle and the Liberation. Mitterrand argued that the Vichy state was not a part of France, the true France of the Republique. In fact, that state was the collaborator of the Nazis and therefore the enemy of France. He argued that the Republique didn’t need to apologize for anything since it was an equal victim with the Jews.
I’m not sure what I think about this discussion. It seems there are doubts about Mitterrand the Socialist and his commitment to a France free of anti-Semitism. Conversely, Chirac the Gaullist is championing the revisiting of a sordid episode in French history. Either way, it doesn’t seem to me that the crimes of the French State, whether Vichy or Free, are to the forefront of the political discussion around racism and immigration in modern day France. Can France truly deal with its present if it hasn’t even begun to deal with its past?