Internment camps in France

Numerous internment camps and concentration camps were located in France before, during and after World War II. Beside the camps created during World War I to intern German, Austrian and Ottoman civilian prisoners, the Third Republic (1871–1940) opened various internment camps for the Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the prohibition of the French Communist Party (PCF) by the government of Édouard Daladier, they were used to detain communist political prisoners. The Third Republic also interned German anti-Nazis (mostly members of the Communist Party of Germany, KPD).
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). Vichy opened up so many camps that it became a full economic sector, to the extent that historian Maurice Rajsfus writes: "The quick opening of new camps created jobs, and the Gendarmerie never ceased to hire during this period." In any case, most of these camps were closed definitively after the liberation of France at the end of World War II. Some were however used during the Algerian War (1954–1962). Several of these were then used to intern "harkis" (Algerians who had fought on the French side) after the 19 March 1962 Évian Accords. Finally, the Camp de Rivesaltes in the Pyrénées-Orientales and the camp of Bourg-Lastic in the Puy de Dôme were also used to intern Kurdish refugees from Iraq in the 1980s.
First World War and later.
The first internment camps were opened during the First World War (1914–1918) to detain civilian prisoners (mainly German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman). These prisoners were detained in Pontmain in the department of Mayenne, Fort-Barreaux in Isère, in the military camp of Graveson (Bouches-du-Rhône), in Frigolet near Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône), Noirlac (Abbey) (Cher), and Ajain(Creuse).
Other internment camps were used for Armenians in the 1920s-1930s (Mirabeau camp, Victor Hugo camp and Oddo Camp in Marseille); Gypsies after the 1912 Act on nomadism (for instance in the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, but also in iron mines in the Manche and other disaffected industrial centers in Mayenne, in the Manche, in Loire-Atlantique, in the Sarthe, in the Maine-et-Loire, etc.).
Spanish Civil War.
The most infamous internment camps before World War II were used to intern the Spanish Republican refugees and military personnel during the Spanish Civil War. In 2 weeks in January and February 1939 around 500,000 men, women and children crossed the border. These were interned mostly in camps in the Roussillon Province, such as the Camp de concentration d'Argelès-sur-Mer although internment camps for defeated Spanish Republicans were established in all of French territory, even in Brittany, in the north-west of France. These camps were located in:
To these camps must be added the camps for the German prisoners in 1939 (sometimes overlapping with those above), and those of the Colonial Empire, not well known in Europe.
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.
After 1940 when the Nazi Germany divided France in occupied and free zone, the camps were also used to imprison Jews, Gypsies, and sometimes gays, and the original prisoners were used as forced labor to make the camps larger.
During World War II and the Vichy regime.
As early as 1939, the existing camps were indiscriminately filled with German anti-Nazis (Communists, German Jews, etc. Following the 1940 defeat, and the 10 July 1940 vote of full powers installing the Vichy regime, these camps were filled with Jews, first with foreign Jews, then indifferently with foreign and French Jews. The Vichy government would progressively hand them up to the Gestapo, and they would all transit by Drancy internment camp, the last stop before concentration camps in the Third Reich and in Eastern Europe and the extermination camps.
Beside Jews, Germans and Austrians were immediately rounded-up in camps, as well as Spanish refugees, who were later deported. 5,000 Spaniards thus died in Mauthausen concentration camp. The French colonial soldiers were interned by the Germans on French territory, instead of being deported.
The Third Republic and the Vichy regime would successively call these places "reception camps" (), "internment camps" (), "séjour" camps (), "guarded "séjour" camps" (), "prisoner camps" (), etc. Another category was created by the Vichy regime: the "transit camps" ("camps de transit"), referring to the fact the detainees were to be deported to Germany. Such "transit camps" included Drancy, Pithiviers, etc. In particular, Pithiviers was used in 1941 for the green ticket roundup, and Drancy in 1942 for the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, before the victims were deported.
During the 1943 Battle of Marseille and urban 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).
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.
Camps under foreign authorities.
The Nazis also opened Struthof in Alsace (in the part annexed by the Reich).
The United States military police also possessed legal authority over the camp in Septèmes-les-Vallons, in the Bouches-du-Rhône.
Ilags.
"Ilag" (for "Internierunslager") were internment camps established by the German Army to hold Allied civilians, captured in areas that were occupied by the Germans. They included US citizens caught in Europe by surprise when the war was declared in December 1941 and citizens of the British Commonwealth caught in areas engulfed by the Blitzkrieg.
Colonial administration.
Although not architecturally conceived as an internment camp, the "Vel' d'Hiv" (Winter Velodrome) was used during the July 1942 Roundup. Most internment camps, however, were not conceived as such. The "Vel d'Hiv" was also used during the Algerian War ("see below").
In the colonial empire, Vichy created in Algeria and in Morocco labour camps ("camps de travail") for Jews in:
The liberation.
German prisoners of war.
Camps were also used after the liberation to intern German prisoners. In Rennes, after General Patton's United States Third Army liberated the city on 4 August 1944, about 50,000 German prisoners were kept in four camps in a city of 100,000 inhabitants at the time.
In the Camp de Rivesaltes, the German prisoners worked extensively in the reconstruction of Pyrénées-Orientales, between May 1945 and 1946, 412 German prisoners of war died in the camp.
After World War II.
Indochina war.
Internment camps were used to receive French from Indochina following the end of the Indochina War in 1954, 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). 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).
Algerian war.
Internment was also put to use during the Algerian War (1954–1962), generally under the name of "camps de regroupement" ("regrouping camps"). 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") to prevent their falling under the influence of the opposing FLN forces. were brought to French metropolitan territory.
In France, some camps used under Vichy were opened again, in Paris in particular, to hold suspected FLN and other Algerian independentists.
The Harkis.
Internment camps were also used to intern the Harkis (Algerians who fought on the French Army's side) after the 19 March 1962 Évian Accords which put an official end to the war. Finally, the "Camp de Rivesaltes" in the "Pyrénées-Orientales", and "Bourg-Lastic" in the "Puy de Dôme", used to intern Jews, were also used to intern Harkis in the 1960s, and Kurdish refugees from Iraq in the 1980s.