PARIS (AFP-EJP)---France's state rail company will give US authorities details of its role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps in support of its bid to build a high-speed railway in California, its chairman said.   

"Twenty years ago we opened all our archives... we are going to open all that to the Americans," said the chairman of the SNCF national railway company, Guillaume Pepy, on Europe 1 radio.   

The SNCF is making a joint bid with major French construction firm Alstom to build a high-speed track from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The project is valued at 43 billion dollars (34 billion euros) overall.   

But under provisions of the state legislature’s Holocaust Survivor Responsibility Act, companies submitting bids for the California project must disclose “whether they had a direct role in Holocaust transportation” and have subsequently provided remedial action or restitution to victims of wartime deportations.

California lawmakers last week voted to demand that bidders supply full details of any involvement in the deportations between 1942 and 1944, and of any reparations paid -- a requirement clearly aimed at the SNCF.   

Under provisions of the state legislature’s Holocaust Survivor Responsibility Act, companies submitting bids for the California project must disclose “whether they had a direct role in Holocaust transportation” and have subsequently provided remedial action or restitution to victims of wartime deportations.

The California legislation does not single out any company by name, but the bill’s chief sponsor, Democratic lawmaker Bob Blumenfield, left no doubt that the main target is the French national railway, Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Francais, known as SNCF.

The Nazis occupying France in the 1940s used SNCF trains to take Jews to death camps. The company insists it was forced to take part in the deportations and that many of its workers resisted the occupation.  

"We should not forget one thing: the SNCF, the railway workers were under the yoke of the Nazi occupiers, threatened with death... 2,000 railway workers were executed by the Nazis," Pepy said.   

Law to go into effect next year

Bob Blumenfield, said the SNCF "refuses to accept responsibility for its role in the Holocaust." He is optimistic that the bill will be approved by the full Assembly and state Senate, be signed by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and go into effect by the beginning of next year.

Pepy said the California lawmakers' demand for full disclosure was "legitimate" and that the French company had "nothing to hide".

David Martinon, the French consul general in Los Angeles, told The Jewish Journal in Los Angeles that his government takes the accusations of wartime collaboration “very seriously” and was ready to fully disclose all information and open its archives to investigators and the press.

The financial stakes are high in construction of the bullet-train system, which is expected to zip passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco or Sacramento at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour.

“This is a 43 billion dollars project, with the actual cost probably much higher,” Blumenfield said.

Construction is expected to start next year.