Executive order 9066

One of the favourite obsessions among many American French bashers (Jay Leno's name comes to mind among many others) is to remind how the French sent their Jewish citizens into German hands through Drancy during WWII. Everyone agrees that was an appalling period.

For 25 years odd now, Anti-Semitism being the ultimate evidence of the vilest and most depraved morality, it goes without saying that Americans would never ever have engaged in such a horrendous policy based on race or religion. Yeah, sure...

But please, tell me, what was the Executive Order 9066 signed by President F.D Roosevelt on Feb 19th 1942 which enabled the US administration to send about 120.000 of it own citizens of Japanese descent to internment camps until the war was over?

The Japanese community was the main target of this racist policy of exclusion but there were also Americans of Italian and German descent who were sent to these camps.

So, should we conclude that both countries, France and the US have an equal responsibility for these shameful decisions?

Just a little difference yet:

In France it was a puppet government set up by the Nazis which was conducting this policy whereas America did it out of its free will. A policy implemented by an elected government which wasn't the case in France where no elections ever put in place the Pétain/Laval government.

Besides, it wasn't under the name of the French Republic that the rounding of the Jews was carried on but in the name of the French State. For those with some understanding of History, there's a "slight" difference...