Sue the F**ckers !

France and its national railway company, SNCF, face a deluge of compensation claims for their role in the deportation of Jews during the second world war. More than 200 families from France, Israel, Belgium, the US and Canada will launch suits this week against the French state and SNCF for colluding in the transport of Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals and Gypsies to the Nazi death camps during the German occupation.

Cases brought in dozens of tribunals across France could last years and, if successful, force the state and the railway to pay millions of euros in compensation.

Many of the cases are being brought by pensioners who as children were interned in Drancy, the transit camp north of Paris known as the "antechamber of death" - from which about 67,000 Jews were sent to their deaths in the concentration camps. They were transported to the camp on the national railway system, often crammed into cattle trucks. SNCF classified them as third-class passengers and continued to send bills for their tickets even after the liberation of France. Of the 330,000 Jews living in France in 1940, 75,721 were deported to death camps and only about 2,500 returned. For decades France refused to face up to accusations of its collaboration. In 1995 President Jacques Chirac made a historic admission that the Vichy government did bear a heavy responsibility in the deportation of France's Jews.