Concentration camps in France There were internment camp s and concentration camp s 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 refugee s 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 - Nazi s ( 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 Jewish people , 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 " harki s " ( 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 . Before World War II . 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 . ) . But the most famous internment camps before World War II were used to receive the Republican refugee s during the Spanish Civil War . These were interned mostly in the Roussillon Province , although internment camps 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 . During World War II and the Vichy regime . As early as 1939 , the existing camps were indiscriminately filled with German anti - Nazi s ( Communists , German Jews , etc . ) or pro - Nazi Germans or also Nazi prisoners of war . 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 camp s in the Third Reich and in Eastern Europe and the extermination camp s . 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 " ( " " camps d ' accueil " " ) , " internment camps " ( " " camps d ' internement " " ) , " sojourn camps " ( " " camps de séjour " " ) , " guarded sojourn camps " ( " " camps de séjour surveillés " " ) , " prisoner camps " ( " " camps de prisonniers " " ) , 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 . During the 1943 " Battle of Marseille " and urban scaping operations 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 ) . There were no extermination camp s in France . However , the camp of Struthof , or Natzweiler - Struthof , in Alsace , which is the only concentration camp created by Nazis on French territory ( annexed by the Third Reich ) did include a gas chamber which was used to exterminate at least 86 detainees ( mostly Jewish ) with the aim of constituting a collection of preserved skeletons ( as this mode of execution did no damage to the skeletons themselves ) 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 . At the end of 1940 , 2 , 400 women , mostly British , were interned in the Vauban barracks and another five hundred , old and sick , in the St . Jacques hospital close by . In early 1941 , many of them were released , the rest were transferred to Vittel . 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 camp s ( " " 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 , but 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 millions 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 harki s ( 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 .