French prime minister signs decree granting reparations to Holocaust orphans
PARIS (AP) - French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has signed a decree granting monetary compensation to Jewish children orphaned during the Holocaust, the government said in a circular on Friday.
   The decree, which went into effect immediately, said that any child whose mother or father was deported from France and sent to death in a concentration camp would receive either 3,000 francs (NIS 1,800) per month or a lump sum of 180,000 francs (NIS 08,000), according to Friday's Journal Officiel.
   The measure followed Jospin's promise in November to compensate people whose parents died in Nazi death camps after being deported by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime during World War II.
   Jospin had said the orphans' suffering demanded a "response worthy of the Republic." The decree, signed Thursday by Jospin and other ministers,
   marked a victory for Nazi-Hunter Serge Klarsfeld, who for years has fought for recognition of the plight of the children who lost parents in the Holocaust.
   In a telephone interview, Klarsfeld said the measure could help up to 10,000 people, including many senior citizens, now scattered throughout the world.
   "I learned that many orphans had financial difficulties, and I wanted to fix their problems at once so they wouldn't suffer more misery," said Klarsfeld, a member of a government-appointed panel set up several years ago to demonstrate France's willingness to face up to its wartime persecution of Jews.
   People eligible for the reparations must now submit formal requests to either the Defense Ministry or their local French embassy.
   During World War II, about 75,000 Jews, including 12,000 children, were deported from France to Nazi death camps. Only about 2,500 survived.