 They were given special status, so that they were not protected as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions after Italy left the coalition of the Axis powers after 8 September 1943.In France where 75,000 Jews were deported to the concentration camps, initial efforts to install "Stolpersteine" were rejected.Notably, after a year-long campaign in 2011 led by a schoolgirl in the coastal town of La Baule-Escoublac (where 32 Jewish residents, including eight children, were deported), the Mayor refused to allow a request for "Stolpersteine" to be installed, claiming that to do so might infringe the French constitutional principles of secularism ("laïcité") and freedom of opinion ("liberté d'opinion") and that they would therefore need to consult the Conseil d'État, France's constitutional court.