French next to feel history's cold hand

Having humiliated the Swiss and then put the scions of German banking through the wringer, the World Jewish Congress is now turning its attention to French banks and the French government over Holocaust claims. Having forced top German companies to agree to the setting up of a Holocaust fund of yet-to-be-determined size, a spokesman for the congress said there were questions remaining for both the French banks and the French government over the billions of dollars of assets seized from Jews under the Vichy regime.

Deutsche Bank, which was one of the top German companies that agreed to the new Holocaust fund, had a major incentive for doing so. Germany's biggest bank wants to buy the eighth-largest US bank, Bankers Trust, a $10.1 billion (€9 billion) deal that has been threatened by the Holocaust issues.