The French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, has said France wants to create a body to investigate restitution of Jewish property confiscated during the Second World War.

Mr Jospin told the Council of French Jewish organisations that France should learn from its history and compensate people for their losses.

During the Second World War France was partly occupied by Germany, partly run by the the pro-Nazi Vichy government.

Mr Jospin also announced plans to create a memorial in Paris for the seventy-six-thousand French Jews who were deported to German concentration camps during the war.

Only two-and-half-thousand of them survived.