VICHY, France (AFP) - Protesters descended on the town of Vichy on Monday as the shamed capital of France’s former pro-Nazi dictatorship hosted its first international government conference since World War II.

Vichy’s municipal leaders hoped that by finally hosting European ministers 64 years after the fall of Marshall Petain’s regime they could shake off their wartime stigma and become a popular spa resort once more.
But several busloads of militants had other ideas, and turned up to protest a conference called to discuss the integration of ethnic minorities in Europe, with some linking current French policy to that of the fascist past.
Police made at least four arrests as the protests began, and 100 officers equipped with riot gear set up a cordon around the venue to prevent the first 80 militants, from a radical splinter group, from approaching.
This group, dubbing themselves “The disobedient”, draw an explicit link between Vichy France, which deported Jews to Nazi death camps, and President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, which has cracked down on illegal immigration.
A larger protest planned for later in the day by mainstream anti-racist groups has promised to be less provocative and to call for social unity.
The four protesters to be arrested were wearing striped prison uniforms designed to recall those of the Holocaust concentration camps.
“We denounce the worrying evolution of European migration policies, which recall the ideas that led to deportations at the end of the 1930s,” declared the leader of the smaller, hardline group, Xavier Renou.
Ahead of the conference, Vichy’s conservative mayor Claude Malhuret, had expressed hope that the town was on the verge of escaping its grim past.
“It’s a scandal that there are 10 conferences per year in Berlin, Hitler’s city, and in Moscow, Stalin’s city, and no-one says a thing, while Vichy has been shunned,” complained Malhuret.
He thanked Brice Hortefeux, France’s minister of immigration, integration and national identity, for organizing the conference and breaking the taboo.
“If conference organizers in future are looking at Vichy, Evian and Cannes, they won’t systematically choose Evian or Cannes,” Malhuret said, looking forward to a day when Vichy can compete with other potential venues.
“Things won’t change overnight, but it’s a way of rediscovering our dignity, and especially our ordinariness.”
Officials from the 27 EU members are to hold two days of talks.