The Ordinance of 9 August 1944 was a constitutional law enacted by the

Provisional Government of the French Republic The Provisional Government of the French Republic (PGFR; french: Gouvernement provisoire de la République française (''GPRF'')) was the provisional government of Free France between 3 June 1944 and 27 October 1946, following the liberation ...

(GPRF) during the

Liberation of France The liberation of France in the Second World War was accomplished through diplomacy, politics and the combined military efforts of the Allied Powers of World War II, Allied Powers, Free French forces in London and Africa, as well as the French R ...

which re-established republican rule of law in mainland France after four years of occupation by Nazi Germany and control by the collaborationist

Vichy regime Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its terr ...

Background

The refusal to consider the Vichy regime as a legally constituted authority was a constant in the

Free France Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...

founded by Charles . Already in his

Brazzaville Manifesto The Empire Defense Council (also called Council of Defense of the Empire, from french: Conseil de défense de l'Empire) was the embodiment of Free France which constituted the government from 1940 to 1941. Subsequently, this role was assumed b ...

of 27 October 1940, the general had proclaimed that there was no longer a French government, and that "the Vichy-based organization that claims to bear this name is unconstitutional and submits to the invader", even as he published on the same day the first Ordinance of Free France establishing the

Empire Defense Council The Empire Defense Council (also called Council of Defense of the Empire, from french: Conseil de défense de l'Empire) was the embodiment of Free France which constituted the government from 1940 to 1941. Subsequently, this role was assumed b ...

, which organized "the legal authority in all parts of the olonialEmpire liberated from control of the enemy ... based on French legislation prior to 23 June 1940."

Promulgated in Algiers by the GPRF led by General , the ordinance expunged all trappings of legality from the Vichy regime, declaring all constitutional regulatory texts enacted by the regime of Pétain and Laval to be void ''ab initio'', beginning with the Constitutional Law of 10 July 1940. As a consequence, the GPRF did not have to explicitly proclaim the return of , as the latter had never legally been dissolved. More generally, this ordinance organized the conditions for the transition from the norms in force under Vichy, to republican norms, in the historical context of the Liberation. Through the text of this ordinance

, embodied by the GPRF and led by General , retroactively constituted itself as the continuous and uninterrupted extension of the French Republic. It proclaimed the Vichy regime stripped of all right to present itself as the legal successor of the Third Republic. This ordinance thus ratified the definitive victory of the government in exile established by as early as 1940 with the

, which disputed Vichy's claim to legitimate authority, with both parties then claiming sole right to represent France during the war. Additionally, by explicitly linking France's mode of government to the Republic, the ordinance endorsed a republican vision of France that precluded any legitimacy for a modification of this form of government. Although the ordinance declared that all Vichy laws were null and void, as reversing all Vichy decisions during the previous four years was impractical, it also stated that only those explicitly listed were invalid.

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