One thing to clarify.
The majority of Jews that were sent East by Vichy were not French citizens, but aliens, who came to France from other countries, but never became French citizens.
75% of Jews in France before the war, wound up surviving the war, because Vichy actually did in general, leave French Jewish citizens alone. That is a much higher percentage than most of the other occupied countries. I still find it amazing that Leon Blum, survived the war. In most occupied countries, a guy like that would have been killed straight away.
And one of the terrible crimes committed by Vichy was to send the children East, in the mistaken belief that it would have been better to keep the families together. There is debate as to how much the Vichy authorities knew as to what their fate would be at the time.
With all due respect, dfw, your post reads like an apologist’s. Whether the Jews were citizens or not has NO bearing on the horrors the Nazis committed upon them. To even slightly rationalize what the Vichy knew or didn’t know is delusional - they collaborated with the Nazis regime and that alone is enough.