US, France resolve Holocaust bank row

The Nazis plundered billions of dollars from French Jews

The US Treasury says it has reached a deal with France aimed at ending a long-running dispute over the assets of Holocaust victims allegedly frozen by French banks.

Treasury spokesman Stuart Eizenstat said an agreement would be signed next week between lawyers representing victims and relatives, and representatives of both governments.

Treasury spokesman Stuart Eizenstat announced details of the deal

According to the terms of the deal, eight French banks will pay 'a substantial multi-million dollar sum' into victims and relatives accounts.

The dispute stems from the publication of a report which estimated that the current-day equivalent of $475m seized from French Jews during the war remains frozen in French banks.

Damages

Details of the frozen accounts were disclosed in the Matteoli report last year, which investigated the plundering of Jewish property during the wartime Vichy regime.

The Nazis in France

Up to 120,000 Jews deported 1940-44

80,000 bank accounts and 6,000 safe-boxes frozen

50,000 Jewish-owned businesses were "aryanised"

More than 100,000 works of art stolen

The Matteoli commission said it found that most accounts were reclaimed by holders after the war and only a minority stayed dormant.

But American lawyers disputed the findings, and some estimate the true value of the frozen assets is closer to $1.25bn.

Mr Eizenstat and French Government representative Jacques Andreani said an agreement was being reached to avoid a crisis between the United States and France.

Paris had feared that US courts would demand huge damage payments from the French banks for failing actively to seek out heirs of the people whose accounts have lain dormant.