The Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Déportation was founded on 17 October 1990 on the initiative of former French prime minister Michel Rocard and the former minister of the Interior. The head office of the Fondation “pour la Mémoire de la Déportation” is in Paris. The foundation acts as an organization for a range of associations and corporations which are dealing with deportation and detention during Nazism and the Vichy regime between 1940 and 1944 in France. As a national institution, the ruling competence is in the hands of an 18-member council with representatives of the ministry of the Interior, the ministry of Defense, the Minister of National Education the ministry of Finance, and others. As of March 2009 the head of the foundation is M.