Israel’s Foreign Ministry has condemned comments by France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen denying that the French State was responsible for rounding up Jews in World War II.

The ministry says in a statement that her comments are “contrary to historical truth, as expressed in the statements of successive French presidents who recognized France’s responsibility for the fate of the French Jews who perished in the Holocaust.”

Former president Jacques Chirac formally acknowledged the state’s role in Jewish persecution in 1995, a position maintained and approved by his successors Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry also says France’s recognition of its responsibility “underpins the annual events marking the anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews from France and the study of the Holocaust in the education system, both of which are important elements in the battle against anti-Semitism, which unfortunately is once again raising its head.”