A French police officer guards a group of Jews at an internment camp in Drancy. Photo courtesy of Bundesarchiv CC-BY-SA 3.0 Electoral campaigns are in full swing for the French presidential election, the first and second rounds of which will be taking be place on 23 April and the 7 May respectively. Four candidates are currently vying for the top two positions in the race, which will prompt a run-off. They are Emmanuel Macron, founder of the En Marche! political movement; Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right-wing Front National; Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the left-wing La France insoumise (Unsubmissive France) party; and François Fillon, of the center-right Republican party. The majority of surveys on the public's voting intentions have suggested for months that Le Pen is at the front of the pack for the first round, but Macron now ties her for the lead. You can find a rundown on the main four running candidates in this article. In what has become a messy electoral battle, Le Pen has launched a number of personal attacks on her young opponent — including several comments on the Vel d'Hiv Roundup (a dark chapter of Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War). The tragedy occurred over two days in July 1942 when more than 13,000 people, almost a third of which were children, were arrested in Paris, and then deported to the many German concentration camps. The official website for the Shoah Memorial in Paris, Memorial de la Shoah, recounts the horrific event: Les 16 et 17 juillet 1942, les forces de l'ordre françaises arrêtaient plusieurs milliers de juifs pour les déporter vers les camps d'extermination allemands. l'occupant nazi décide de rafler, en zone nord comme en zone sud, les hommes jusqu'à 60 ans, les femmes jusqu'à 55 ans et les enfants de 2 à 16 ans. Ces opérations, programmées par les nazis, sont menées avec la complicité du gouvernement de Vichy et constituent la plus grande rafle de Juifs organisée sur le territoire français durant la guerre. On 16 and 17 July 1942, French law enforcement arrested several thousands of Jews with the aim to deport them to German extermination camps. The Nazi occupiers had decided to clear out both the North and South zones of all men of up to 60 years of age, women of up to 55 years of age, and children aged between 2 and 16 years old. The plan, also known as Operation: Spring Breeze, was carried about by the Nazis with complicity from the Vichy government. It was the largest scale roundup of Jews on French soil during the Second World War. This chapter, commonly referred to as the Vel d'Hiv Roundup, is commemorated on numerous occasions in various areas of France. However, according to Le Pen in a campaign speech on 9 April: La France n’est pas responsable du Vél’ d’Hiv’. S’il y a des responsables, c’est ceux qui étaient au pouvoir à l’époque, ce n’est pas la France. La France a été malmenée dans les esprits depuis des années. On a appris à nos enfants qu’ils avaient toutes les raisons de la critiquer, de n’en voir les aspects historiques que les plus sombres. Je veux qu’ils soient à nouveau fiers d’être Français. France should not claim responsibility for Vel d'Hiv. If anyone should claim responsibility, it should be those who were in power at the time, which was not France. France has been mistreated in memory for many years. We teach our children that it is okay to criticise [the country], to not look at any aspects of history apart from the darkest. I long for them to once again be proud of France. In response to Le Pen, André Sénik, a professor in philosophy with an interest in the history of the Jewish Diaspora, wrote for French news site causeur.fr on how the Vel d'Hiv tragedy has lived on for the last 50 years through French politics: Il n’a pas fallu moins de 50 ans pour que la demande soit explicitement formulée. C’est seulement en 1992, soit cinquante ans après la rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv’, qu’une pétition lancée par le comité Vel d’Hiv’ 42 et soutenue par 200 personnalités parut dans Le Monde, pour demander au président de la République de reconnaître au nom de la France, que « l’État français de Vichy a été responsable de persécutions et de crimes commis contre les Juifs de France ». Cette demande émanait de citoyens français juifs et non juifs. Elle ne demandait que la reconnaissance d’une vérité historique dûment établie par les historiens, en particulier depuis les travaux de Robert Paxton en 1972.