Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the
fascist
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
French state headed by Marshal
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Officially independent, but with half of its
territory
A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal.
In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
occupied under harsh terms of the
armistice
An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the La ...
, it adopted a policy of
collaboration with Nazi Germany, which
occupied the northern and western portions before occupying the remainder of
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...
in November 1942. Though Paris was ostensibly its capital, the collaborationist Vichy government established itself in the resort town of
Vichy
Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais.
It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...
in the unoccupied "Free Zone" (), where it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as its
colonies
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
.
The
Third French Republic
The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940 ...
had begun the war in September 1939 on the side of the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
. On 10 May 1940, it was
invaded by Nazi Germany. The German Army rapidly broke through the Allied lines by bypassing the highly fortified
Maginot Line and invading through Belgium and Luxembourg. By mid-June, the military situation of the French was dire, and it was apparent that the battle for Metropolitan France could not be won. The French government began to discuss the possibility of an armistice.
Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud (; 15 October 1878 – 21 September 1966) was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany.
Reynaud opposed the Munich Agreement of ...
resigned as prime minister, rather than sign an armistice, and was replaced by Marshal
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
, a hero of World War I. Shortly thereafter, Pétain signed the
Armistice of 22 June 1940
The Armistice of 22 June 1940 was signed at 18:36 near Compiègne, France, by officials of Nazi Germany and the Third French Republic. It did not come into effect until after midnight on 25 June.
Signatories for Germany included Wilhelm Keitel ...
.
At Vichy, Pétain established an authoritarian government that reversed many liberal policies and began tight supervision of the economy. Conservative Catholics became prominent, and Paris lost its
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
status in European art and culture. The media were tightly controlled and promoted
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
and, after
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
started in June 1941,
anti-Bolshevism. The terms of the armistice presented certain advantages, such as keeping the
French Navy
The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...
and
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First French Colonial Empire", that exist ...
under French control and avoiding full occupation of the country by Germany, which maintained a degree of French independence and neutrality. Despite heavy pressure, the French government at Vichy never joined the
Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
and even remained formally at war with Germany. Conversely, Vichy France became a
collaborationist regime.
Germany kept
two million French prisoners-of-war and imposed
forced labour () on young French men. French soldiers were kept hostage to ensure that Vichy would reduce its military forces and pay a heavy tribute in gold, food and supplies to Germany. French police were ordered to
round up Jews and other "undesirables" such as
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and political refugees, and at least 72,500 Jews were killed as a result.
Most of the French public initially supported the regime, but opinion gradually turned against the French government and the occupying German forces when it became clear that Germany was losing the war, and living conditions in France were becoming increasingly difficult. The
French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
, working largely in concert with
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
's movement outside the country, increased in strength over the course of the occupation. After the Allied
invasion of Normandy
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...
in June 1944 and 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 ...
later that year, the Free French
Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) was installed as the new national government, led by .
The last of the Vichy exiles were captured in the
Sigmaringen enclave
The Sigmaringen enclave was the exiled remnant of France's Nazi-sympathizing Vichy government which fled to Germany during the Liberation of France near the end of World War II in order to avoid capture by the advancing Allied forces. ...
in April 1945. Pétain was put on trial for treason by the new Provisional Government, and sentenced to death, but that was commuted to life imprisonment by . Only four senior Vichy officials were tried for
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
although many others had participated in the deportation of Jews for internment in
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
, abuses of prisoners and severe acts against members of the Resistance.
Overview
In 1940, Marshal Pétain was known as a World War I hero, who was the victor of the
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun (french: Bataille de Verdun ; german: Schlacht um Verdun ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...
. As the last
French prime minister
The prime minister of France (french: link=no, Premier ministre français), officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and the leader of the Council of Ministers.
The prime minister i ...
of the Third Republic, he was a reactionary by inclination and blamed the Third Republic's democracy for France's sudden defeat by Germany. He set up a paternalistic authoritarian regime that actively collaborated with Germany, despite Vichy's official neutrality. The Vichy government co-operated with
the Germans' Nazi racial policies.
Terminology
![France map Lambert-93 with regions and departments-occupation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/France_map_Lambert-93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation.svg)
After the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...
under the
Third Republic voted to give full powers to
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
on 10 July 1940, the name ''
République française
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area e ...
'' (French Republic) disappeared from all official documents. From then on, the regime was referred to officially as the ''État Français'' (French State). Because of its unique situation in the history of France, its contested legitimacy
and the generic nature of its official name, the "French State" is most often represented in English by the synonyms "Vichy France"; "Vichy regime"; "government of Vichy"; or, in context, simply "Vichy".
The territory under the control of the Vichy government was the unoccupied southern portion of Metropolitan France south of the
Line of Demarcation
The Treaty of Tordesillas, ; pt, Tratado de Tordesilhas . signed in Tordesillas, Spain on 7 June 1494, and authenticated in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Emp ...
, as established by the
Armistice of 22 June 1940
The Armistice of 22 June 1940 was signed at 18:36 near Compiègne, France, by officials of Nazi Germany and the Third French Republic. It did not come into effect until after midnight on 25 June.
Signatories for Germany included Wilhelm Keitel ...
, and the overseas French territories, such as
French North Africa
French North Africa (french: Afrique du Nord française, sometimes abbreviated to ANF) is the term often applied to the territories controlled by France in the North African Maghreb during the colonial era, namely Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. In ...
, which was "an integral part of Vichy" and where all antisemitic Vichy's laws were also implemented. This was called the (Unoccupied Zone) by the Germans, and known as the ''
Zone libre
The ''zone libre'' (, ''free zone'') was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered b ...
'' (Free Zone) in France, or less formally as the "Southern Zone" () especially after
Operation Anton
Case Anton (german: link=no, Fall Anton) was the military occupation of France carried out by Germany and Italy in November 1942. It marked the end of the Vichy regime as a nominally-independent state and the disbanding of its army (the severel ...
, the invasion of the by German forces in November 1942. Other
contemporary colloquial terms for the were based on abbreviation and wordplay, such as the "zone nono", for the non-occupied Zone.
Jurisdiction
In theory, the civil jurisdiction of the Vichy government extended over most of
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...
,
French Algeria
French Algeria (french: Alger to 1839, then afterwards; unofficially , ar, الجزائر المستعمرة), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the ...
, the
French protectorate in Morocco
The French protectorate in Morocco (french: Protectorat français au Maroc; ar, الحماية الفرنسية في المغرب), also known as French Morocco, was the period of French colonial rule in Morocco between 1912 to 1956. The prote ...
, the
French protectorate of Tunisia and the rest of the French colonial empire that accepted the authority of Vichy; only the disputed border territory of
Alsace-Lorraine was placed under direct German administration. Alsace-Lorraine was officially still part of France, as the never annexed the region. The Reich government at the time was not interested in attempting to enforce piecemeal annexations in the West although it later annexed Luxembourg; it operated under the assumption that Germany's new western border would be determined in peace negotiations, which would be attended by all of the Western Allies and thus producing a frontier that would be recognised by all of the major powers. Since Hitler's overall territorial ambitions were not limited to recovering Alsace-Lorraine, and Britain was never brought to terms, those peace negotiations never took place.
The Nazis had some intention of annexing
a large swath of northeastern France, replacing that region's inhabitants with German settlers, and initially forbade French refugees from returning to the region, but the restrictions were never thoroughly enforced and were basically abandoned following the
invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...
, which had the effect of turning German territorial ambitions almost exclusively to the East. German troops guarding the boundary line of the northeastern were withdrawn on the night of 17–18 December 1941, but the line remained in place on paper for the remainder of the occupation.
Nevertheless, effectively Alsace-Lorraine was annexed: German law applied to the region, its inhabitants were conscripted into the
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
and pointedly the customs posts separating France from Germany were placed back where they had been between 1871 and 1918. Similarly, a sliver of French territory in the Alps was under direct Italian administration from June 1940 to September 1943. Throughout the rest of the country, civil servants were under the formal authority of French ministers in Vichy.
René Bousquet
René Bousquet (; 11 May 1909 – 8 June 1993) was a high-ranking French political appointee who served as secretary general to the Vichy French police from May 1942 to 31 December 1943. For personal heroism, he had become a protégé of promin ...
, the head of French police nominated by Vichy, exercised his power in Paris through his second-in-command,
Jean Leguay
Jean Leguay (29 November 1909 – 2 July 1989) was the second-in-command of the French National Police during the Nazi Occupation of France. He was complicit in the 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris and their deportation from France to Nazi extermi ...
, who coordinated raids with the Nazis. German laws took precedence over French laws in the occupied territories, and the Germans often rode roughshod over the sensibilities of Vichy administrators.
On 11 November 1942, following the landing of the Allies in North Africa (
Operation Torch
Operation Torch (8 November 1942 – Run for Tunis, 16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of secu ...
), the
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
launched
Operation Anton
Case Anton (german: link=no, Fall Anton) was the military occupation of France carried out by Germany and Italy in November 1942. It marked the end of the Vichy regime as a nominally-independent state and the disbanding of its army (the severel ...
, occupying southern France and disbanding the strictly limited "
Armistice Army" that Vichy had been allowed by the armistice.
Legitimacy
Vichy's claim to be the legitimate French government was denied by Free France and by all subsequent French governments
after the war. They maintain that Vichy was an illegal government run by
traitors, having come to power through an unconstitutional
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
. Pétain was constitutionally appointed prime minister by President Lebrun on 16 June 1940 and he was legally within his rights to sign the armistice with Germany; however, his decision to ask the National Assembly to dissolve itself while granting him dictatorial powers has been more controversial. Historians have particularly debated the circumstances of the vote by the National Assembly of the Third Republic granting full powers to Pétain on 10 July 1940. The main arguments advanced against Vichy's right to incarnate the continuity of the French state were based on the pressure exerted by Pierre Laval, a former prime minister in the Third Republic, on the deputies in Vichy and on the absence of 27 deputies and senators who had fled on the ship
''Massilia'' and so could not take part in the vote. However, during the war, the
Vichy government was internationally recognised, notably by the United States and several other major Allied powers. Diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom had been severed since 8 July 1940 after the
attack on Mers-el-Kébir.
Julian T. Jackson
Julian Timothy Jackson (born 10 April 1954) is a British historian who is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society. He is a professor of History at Queen Mary, University of London, he is one of the leading authorities ...
wrote, "There seems little doubt... that at the beginning Vichy was both legal and legitimate". He stated that if legitimacy comes from popular support, Pétain's massive popularity in France until 1942 made his government legitimate, and if legitimacy comes from diplomatic recognition, over 40 countries, including the United States, Canada, and China, recognised the Vichy government. According to Jackson, 's Free French acknowledged the weakness of its case against Vichy's legality by citing multiple dates (16 June, 23 June and 10 July) for the start of Vichy's illegitimate rule implying that at least for some time, Vichy was still legitimate. Countries recognised the Vichy government despite 's attempts in London to dissuade them; only the German occupation of all of France in November 1942 ended diplomatic recognition. Supporters of Vichy point out that the grant of governmental powers was voted by a joint session of both chambers of the Third Republic Parliament (the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies) in keeping with the constitutional law.
Ideology
The Vichy regime sought an anti-modern
counter-revolution
A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...
. The
traditionalist right
Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of Liberty, freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convent ...
in France, with strength in the
aristocracy
Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'.
At t ...
and among
Roman Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, had never accepted the republican traditions of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
but demanded a return to traditional lines of culture and religion. It embraced
authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political '' status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...
while dismissing
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
.
The Vichy regime also framed itself as decisively
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
.
French communists, strongest in labour unions, turned against Vichy in June 1941, when
Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
[Debbie Lackerstein, ''National Regeneration in Vichy France: Ideas and Policies, 1930–1944'' (2013)] Vichy was intensely anti-communist and generally pro-German; American historian
Stanley G. Payne found that it was "distinctly
rightist
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, auth ...
and
authoritarian
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...
but never
fascist
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
". Political scientist
Robert Paxton
Robert Owen Paxton (born June 15, 1932) is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. He is Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History ...
analysed the entire range of Vichy supporters, from
reactionaries
In political science, a reactionary or a reactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the ''status quo ante'', the previous political state of society, which that person believes possessed positive characteristics abse ...
to moderate
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
modernizers, and concluded that genuinely fascist elements had only minor roles in most sectors. French historian
Olivier Wieviorka rejects the idea that Vichy France was fascist, noting that "Pétain refused to create a single party state, avoided getting France involved in a new war, hated modernization, and supported the Church".
![Imagerie de la Révolution nationale](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Imagerie_de_la_R%C3%A9volution_nationale.jpg)
The Vichy government tried to assert its legitimacy by symbolically connecting itself with the
Gallo-Roman
Gallo-Roman culture was a consequence of the Romanization of Gauls under the rule of the Roman Empire. It was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman culture, language, morals and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context ...
period of
France's history, and celebrated the
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium ...
chieftain
Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix (; Greek: Οὐερκιγγετόριξ; – 46 BC) was a Gallic king and chieftain of the Arverni tribe who united the Gauls in a failed revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars. Despite h ...
as the "founder" of the French nation.
It was asserted that just as the defeat of the Gauls in the
Battle of Alesia (52 BCE) had been the moment in French history when a sense of common nationhood was born, the
defeat of 1940 would again unify the nation.
The Vichy government's "francisque" insignia featured two symbols from the Gallic period: the
baton and the double-headed hatchet (
labrys
''Labrys'' ( gr, , lábrus) is, according to Plutarch (''Quaestiones Graecae'' 2.302a), the Lydian word for the double-bitted axe. In Greek it was called (''pélekus''). The Ancient Greek plural of ''labrys'' is ''labryes'' ().
Etymology
P ...
) arranged so as to resemble the
fasces
Fasces ( ; ; a ''plurale tantum'', from the Latin word ''fascis'', meaning "bundle"; it, fascio littorio) is a bound bundle of wooden rods, sometimes including an axe (occasionally two axes) with its blade emerging. The fasces is an Italian symbo ...
, the symbol of the
Italian Fascists.
To advance his message, Pétain frequently spoke on
French radio. In his radio speeches, Pétain always used the personal pronoun , portrayed himself as a Christ-like figure sacrificing himself for France and assuming a God-like tone of a semi-omniscient narrator who knew truths about the world that the rest of the French did not. To justify the Vichy ideology of the ''
Révolution nationale
The ''Révolution nationale'' (, ''National Revolution'') was the official ideological program promoted by the Vichy regime (the “French State”) which had been established in July 1940 and led by Marshal Philippe Pétain. Pétain's regime wa ...
'' ("national revolution"), Pétain needed a radical break with the
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940 ...
. During his radio speeches, the entire French Third Republic era was always painted in the blackest of colours as a time of ("decadence") when the
French people
The French people (french: Français) are an ethnic group and nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France.
The French people, especially the nati ...
were alleged to have suffered moral degeneration and decline.
Summarising Pétain's speeches, the British historian Christopher Flood wrote that Pétain blamed on "political and economic liberalism, with its divisive,
individualistic
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-relianc ...
and
hedonistic
Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decre ...
values—locked in sterile rivalry with its antithetical outgrowths, Socialism and Communism". Pétain argued that rescuing the French people from required a period of authoritarian government that would restore national unity and the
traditionalist morality
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
, which Pétain claimed the French had forgotten. Despite his highly-negative view of the Third Republic, Pétain argued that ''
la France profonde'' ("deep France", denoting profoundly French aspects of French culture) still existed, and that the French people needed to return to what Pétain insisted was their true identity. Alongside this claim for a moral revolution was Pétain's call for France to turn inwards and to withdraw from the world, which Pétain always portrayed as a hostile and threatening place full of endless dangers for the French.
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronati ...
replaced
Marianne
Marianne () has been the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution, as a personification of liberty, equality, fraternity and reason, as well as a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty.
Marianne is displayed in ...
as the national symbol of France under Vichy, as her status as one of France's best-loved heroines gave her widespread appeal, and the image of Joan as a devout
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and
patriot
A patriot is a person with the quality of patriotism.
Patriot may also refer to:
Political and military groups United States
* Patriot (American Revolution), those who supported the cause of independence in the American Revolution
* Patriot m ...
also fit well with Vichy's traditionalist message. Vichy literature portrayed Joan as an archetypal virgin and Marianne as an archetypal whore. Under the Vichy regime, the school textbook by René Jeanneret was required reading, and the anniversary of Joan's death became an occasion for school speeches commemorating her martyrdom. Joan's encounter with angelic voices, according to Catholic tradition, were presented as literal history. The textbook declared "the Voices did speak!" in contrast with republican school texts, which had strongly implied Joan was mentally ill. Vichy instructors sometimes struggled to square Joan's military heroism with the classical virtues of womanhood, with one school textbook insisting that girls ought not follow Joan's example literally, saying: "Some of the most notable heroes in our history have been women. But nevertheless, girls should preferably exercise the virtues of patience, persistence and resignation. They are destined to tend to the running of the household ... It is in love that our future mothers will find the strength to practise those virtues which best befit their sex and their condition". Exemplifying Vichy propaganda's synthesis of Joan the warrior and Joan the dutiful woman, Anne-Marie Hussenot, speaking at the school at Uriage, stated: "a woman should remember that, in the case of Joan of Arc, or other illustrious women throughout the exceptional mission that was confided to them, they first of all performed humbly and simply their woman's role".
The key component of Vichy's ideology was
Anglophobia
Anti-English sentiment or Anglophobia (from Latin ''Anglus'' "English" and Greek φόβος, ''phobos'', "fear") means opposition to, dislike of, fear of, hatred of, or the oppression and persecution of England and/or English people.''Oxford ...
. In part, Vichy's virulent Anglophobia was due to its leaders' personal dislike of the British, as Marshal Pétain,
Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...
and Admiral
François Darlan
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the ''École navale'' in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service d ...
were all Anglophobes. As early as February 1936, Pétain had told the Italian Ambassador to France that "England has always been France's most implacable enemy" and went on to say that France had "two hereditary enemies", namely Germany and Britain, with the latter being easily the more dangerous of the two; and he wanted a Franco-German-Italian alliance that would partition the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
, an event that Pétain claimed would solve all of the economic problems caused by the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. Beyond that, to justify both the armistice with Germany and the , Vichy needed to portray the French declaration of war on Germany as a hideous mistake and the French society under the Third Republic as degenerate and rotten. The together with Pétain's policy of ("France alone") were meant to "regenerate" France from , which was said to have destroyed French society and to have brought about the defeat of 1940. Such a harsh critique of French society could generate only so much support, and as such Vichy blamed French problems on various "enemies" of France, the chief of which was Britain, the "eternal enemy" that had supposedly conspired via
Masonic lodge
A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered ...
s to weaken France and then to pressure France into declaring war on Germany in 1939.
No other nation was attacked as frequently and violently as Britain was in Vichy propaganda. In Pétain's radio speeches, Britain was always portrayed as the "
Other
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
", a nation that was the complete antithesis of everything good in France, the blood-soaked "
Perfidious Albion
"Perfidious Albion" is a pejorative phrase used within the context of international relations diplomacy to refer to acts of diplomatic slights, duplicity, treachery and hence infidelity (with respect to perceived promises made to or alliances f ...
" and the relentless "eternal enemy" of France whose ruthlessness knew no bounds. Joan of Arc, who had fought against England, was made into the symbol of France partly for that reason. The chief themes of Vichy Anglophobia were British "selfishness" in using and then abandoning France after instigating wars, British "treachery" and British plans to take over
French colonies
From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over , the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. During the 19th and 20th centuri ...
. The three examples that were used to illustrate these themes were the
Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940, the Royal Navy
attack at Mers-el-Kébir on the French Mediterranean fleet that killed over 1,300 French sailors in July 1940 and the failed
Anglo-Free French attempt to seize Dakar in September 1940. Typical of Vichy anti-British propaganda was the widely distributed pamphlet published in August 1940 and written by self-proclaimed "professional Anglophobe"
Henri Béraud
Henri Béraud (; 21 September 1885 in Lyon – 24 October 1958 in Saint-Clément-des-Baleines, Ré Island), also known as Tristan Audebert, was a French novelist and journalist. He was sentenced to death in 1945, which was later commuted to ...
entitled, ("Should England Be Reduced to Slavery?"); the question in the title was merely rhetorical. Additionally, Vichy mixed Anglophobia with racism and
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
to portray the British as a racially degenerate "mixed race" working for Jewish capitalists, in contrast to the "racially pure" peoples on the continent of Europe who were building a "New Order". In an interview conducted by Béraud with Admiral Darlan published in ''
Gringoire'' newspaper in 1941, Darlan was quoted as saying that if the "New Order" failed in Europe, it would mean "here in France, the return to power of the Jews and Freemasons subservient to Anglo-Saxon policy".
Fall of France and establishment of the Vichy government
![Bundesarchiv Bild 121-0404, Frankreich, Französische Kriegsgefangene](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Bundesarchiv_Bild_121-0404%2C_Frankreich%2C_Franz%C3%B6sische_Kriegsgefangene.jpg)
France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 after the
German invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...
on 1 September. After the eight-month
Phoney War
The Phoney War (french: Drôle de guerre; german: Sitzkrieg) was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germa ...
, the Germans launched their
offensive in the West on 10 May 1940. Within days, it became clear that French military forces were overwhelmed and that military collapse was imminent. Government and military leaders, deeply shocked by the débâcle, debated how to proceed. Many officials, including Prime Minister
Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud (; 15 October 1878 – 21 September 1966) was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany.
Reynaud opposed the Munich Agreement of ...
, wanted to move the government to French territories in North Africa and to continue the war with the French Navy and colonial resources. Others, particularly Vice-Premier Philippe Pétain and Commander-in-Chief General
Maxime Weygand
Maxime Weygand (; 21 January 1867 – 28 January 1965) was a French military commander in World War I and World War II.
Born in Belgium, Weygand was raised in France and educated at the Saint-Cyr military academy in Paris. After graduating in 1 ...
, insisted that the responsibility of the government was to remain in France and share the misfortune of its people; they called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
While the debate continued, the government was forced to relocate several times to avoid capture by advancing German forces and finally reached Bordeaux. Communications were poor and thousands of civilian refugees clogged the roads. In those chaotic conditions, advocates of an armistice gained the upper hand. The Cabinet agreed on a proposal to seek armistice terms from Germany with the understanding that if Germany set forth dishonourable or excessively-harsh terms, France would retain the option to continue to fight. General
Charles Huntziger
Charles Huntziger (; 25 June 1880 – 11 November 1941) was a French Army general during World War I and World War II.
He was born at Lesneven ( Finistère), in Brittany of a family which settled in the region, after the Prussian invasion of ...
, who headed the French armistice delegation, was told to break off negotiations if the Germans demanded the occupation of all of Metropolitan France, the French fleet, or any of the French overseas territories. The Germans did not, however, make any of those demands.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H25217, Henry Philippe Petain und Adolf Hitler](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H25217%2C_Henry_Philippe_Petain_und_Adolf_Hitler.jpg)
Prime Minister Reynaud favoured continuing the war but was soon outvoted by those who advocated an armistice. Facing an untenable situation, Reynaud resigned and, on his recommendation, President
Albert Lebrun
Albert François Lebrun (; 29 August 1871 – 6 March 1950) was a French politician, President of France from 1932 to 1940. He was the last president of the Third Republic. He was a member of the centre-right Democratic Republican Alliance (A ...
appointed the 84-year-old Pétain as the new prime minister on 16 June 1940. The Armistice with France (Second Compiègne), armistice with Germany was signed on 22 June 1940. A separate French agreement was reached with Italy, which had entered the war against France on 10 June, well after the outcome of the battle had been decided.
Adolf Hitler had a number of reasons for agreeing to an armistice. He wanted to ensure that France did not continue to fight from North Africa and that the French Navy was taken out of the war. In addition, leaving a French government in place would relieve Germany of the considerable burden of administering French territory, particularly as Hitler turned his attention toward Britain, which did not surrender and fought on against Germany. Finally, as Germany lacked a navy sufficient to occupy France's overseas territories, Hitler's only practical recourse to deny the British the use of those territories was to maintain France's status as a ''de jure'' independent and neutral nation and to send a message to Britain that it was alone, with France appearing to switch sides and the United States remaining neutral. However, German espionage against France after its defeat intensified greatly, particularly in southern France.
Conditions of armistice
![AtHistEur1940](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/AtHistEur1940.jpg)
As per the terms of the Franco-German armistice of June 22, 1940, Nazi Germany annexed the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, and the German army occupied northern metropolitan France and all the Atlantic coastline down to the border with Spain.
That left the rest of France, including the remaining two-fifths of southern and eastern metropolitan France and Overseas France North Africa, unoccupied, and under the control of a collaborationist French government based at the city of Vichy, and headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain. Ostensibly, the Vichy French government administered the whole of France, including Overseas Vichy France-North Africa.
Prisoners
Germany took two million French soldiers as prisoners-of-war and sent them to camps in Germany. About a third had been released on various terms by 1944. Of the remainder, the officers and NCOs (corporals and sergeants) were kept in camps but were exempt from forced labour. The privates were first sent to "Stalag" camps for processing and were then put to work. About half of them worked in German agriculture, where food rations were adequate and controls were lenient. The others worked in factories or mines, where conditions were much harsher.
Armistice Army
![Bundesarchiv Bild 121-0417, Französischer Kriegsgefangener mit Wachtposten](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Bundesarchiv_Bild_121-0417%2C_Franz%C3%B6sischer_Kriegsgefangener_mit_Wachtposten.jpg)
The Germans occupied northern France directly. The French had to pay costs for the 300,000-strong German occupation army, amounting to 20 million Reichsmarks per day, at the artificial rate of twenty Francs to the Reichsmark. That was 50 times the actual costs of the occupation garrison. The French government also had responsibility for preventing French citizens from escaping into exile.
Article IV of the Armistice allowed for a small French army—the Armistice Army ()—stationed in the unoccupied zone, and for the military provision of the
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First French Colonial Empire", that exist ...
overseas. The function of those forces was to keep internal order and to defend French territories from Allies of World War II, Allied assault. The French forces were to remain under the overall direction of the German armed forces.
The exact strength of the Vichy French Metropolitan Army was set at 3,768 officers, 15,072 non-commissioned officers, and 75,360 men. All members had to be volunteers. In addition to the army, the size of the was fixed at 60,000 men plus an anti-aircraft force of 10,000 men. Despite the influx of trained soldiers from the colonial forces (reduced in size in accordance with the armistice), there was a shortage of volunteers. As a result, 30,000 men of the class of 1939 were retained to fill the quota. In early 1942 those conscripts were released, but there were still not enough men. That shortage remained until the regime's dissolution, despite Vichy appeals to the Germans for a regular form of conscription.
The Vichy French Metropolitan Army was deprived of tanks and other armoured vehicles and was desperately short of motorised transport, a particular problem for cavalry units. Surviving recruiting posters stress the opportunities for athletic activities, including horsemanship, reflecting both the general emphasis placed by the Vichy government on rural virtues and outdoor activities and the realities of service in a small and technologically backward military force. Traditional features characteristic of the pre-1940 French Army, such as kepis and heavy (buttoned-back greatcoats) were replaced by berets and simplified uniforms.
The Vichy authorities did not deploy the Army of the Armistice against resistance groups active in the south of France, reserving that role to the Vichy ''Milice'' (militia), a paramilitary force created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy government to combat the Resistance. Members of the regular army could thus defect to the Maquis (World War II), Maquis after the German occupation of southern France and the disbandment of the Army of the Armistice in November 1942. By contrast, the Milice continued to collaborate, and its members were subject to reprisals after the liberation of France, Liberation.
Vichy French colonial forces were reduced in accordance with the terms of the armistice, but in the Mediterranean area alone, Vichy still had nearly 150,000 men under arms. There were about 55,000 in French protectorate of Morocco, French Morocco, 50,000 in French Algeria, Algeria, and almost 40,000 in the Army of the Levant (), in Mandate of Lebanon, Lebanon and Mandate of Syria, Syria. Colonial forces were allowed to keep some armoured vehicles, though these were mostly "vintage" World War I tanks (FT-17, Renault FT).
German custody
The Armistice required France to turn over any German citizens within the country upon German demand. The French regarded this as a "dishonorable" term since it would require France to hand over persons who had entered France seeking refuge from Germany. Attempts to negotiate the point with Germany proved unsuccessful, and the French decided not to press the issue to the point of refusing the Armistice.
10 July 1940 vote of full powers
![Laval-shot0038](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Laval-shot0038.png)
On 10 July 1940, the Chamber of Deputies (France), Chamber of Deputies and the Senate (France), Senate gathered in joint session in the quiet spa town of
Vichy
Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais.
It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...
, their provisional capital in central France. Lyon, France's second-largest city, would have been a more logical choice but Mayor Édouard Herriot was too associated with the Third Republic. Marseilles had a reputation as an Milieu (organized crime in France), organized crime hub. Toulouse was too remote and had a left-wing reputation. Vichy was centrally located and had many hotels for ministers to use.
Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...
and Raphaël Alibert began their campaign to convince the assembled senators and deputies to vote full powers to Pétain. They used every means available, such as promising ministerial posts to some and threatening and intimidating others. They were aided by the absence of popular, charismatic figures who might have opposed them, such as Georges Mandel and Édouard Daladier, who were then aboard the ship on their way to North Africa and exile. On 10 July the National Assembly, comprising both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, voted by 569 votes to 80, with 20 voluntary abstentions, to grant full and extraordinary powers to Marshal Pétain. By the same vote, they also granted him the power to write a new constitution.
By Act No. 2 on the following day, Pétain defined his own powers and abrogated any Third Republic laws that were in conflict with them.
(French Constitutional Law of 1940, These acts would later be annulled in August 1944.
)
Most legislators believed that democracy would continue, albeit with a new constitution. Although Laval said on 6 July that "parliamentary democracy has lost the war; it must disappear, ceding its place to an authoritarian, hierarchical, national and social regime", the majority trusted Pétain. Léon Blum, who voted no, wrote three months later that Laval's "obvious objective was to cut all the roots that bound France to its republican and revolutionary past. His 'national revolution' was to be a counter-revolution eliminating all the progress and human rights won in the last one hundred and fifty years".
The minority of mostly Radical Party (France), Radicals and French Section of the Workers' International, Socialists who opposed Laval became known as the Vichy 80. The deputies and senators who voted to grant full powers to Pétain were condemned on an individual basis after the Liberation.
The majority of French historians and all postwar French governments have contended that this vote by the National Assembly was illegal. Three main arguments are put forward:
* Abrogation of legal procedure
* The impossibility for Parliament to delegate its constitutional powers without controlling their use ''a posteriori''.
* The 1884 constitutional amendment making it unconstitutional to put into question the "republican form" of the government.
Out of a total of 544 Deputies, only 414 voted; and out of a total of 302 senators, only 235 voted. Of these, 357 deputies voted in favour of Pétain and 57 against, while 212 senators voted for Pétain, and 23 against. Thus, Pétain was approved by 65% of all deputies and 70% of all senators. Although Pétain could claim legality for himself, particularly in comparison with the essentially self-appointed leadership of Charles , the dubious circumstances of the vote explain why most French historians do not consider Vichy a complete continuity of the French state.
The text voted by the Congress stated:
The National Assembly gives full powers to the government of the Republic, under the authority and the signature of Marshal Pétain, to the effect of promulgating by one or several acts a new constitution of the French state. This constitution must guarantee the rights of labour, of family and of the homeland. It will be ratified by the nation and applied by the assemblies which it has created.
![Moneta FRANCIA 1943](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Moneta_FRANCIA_1943.JPG)
The Constitutional Acts of 11 and 12 July 1940 granted to Pétain all powers (legislative, judicial, administrative, executive and diplomatic) and the title of "head of the French state" (), as well as the right to nominate his successor. On 12 July, Pétain designated Laval as vice-president and his designated successor and appointed Fernand de Brinon as representative to the German High Command in Paris. Pétain remained the head of the Vichy regime until 20 August 1944. The French national motto, ''Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité'' (Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood
) was replaced by (Work, Family, Homeland). It was noted at the time that TFP also stood for the criminal punishment of ("forced labor in perpetuity"). Reynaud was arrested in September 1940 by the Vichy government and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1941, before the opening of the Riom Trial.
Pétain was reactionary by nature, despite his status as a hero of the Third Republic during World War I. Almost as soon as he was granted full powers, Pétain began blaming the Third Republic's democracy and endemic corruption for France's humiliating defeat by Germany. Accordingly, his government soon began taking on authoritarian characteristics. Democratic liberties and guarantees were immediately suspended. The crime of "crime of opinion" () was reestablished, effectively repealing freedom of thought and freedom of expression, expression, and critics were frequently arrested. Elective bodies were replaced by nominated ones. The "municipalities" and the French departments, departmental commissions were thus placed under the authority of the administration and of the prefectures of France, prefects (nominated by and dependent on the executive power). In January 1941, the National Council (), composed of notables from the countryside and the provinces, was instituted under the same conditions. Despite the clear authoritarian cast of Pétain's government, he did not formally institute a one-party state, maintained the Flag of France, Tricolor and other symbols of republican France and, unlike many on the far right, was not an anti-Dreyfusard. Pétain excluded fascists from office in his government, and by and large, his cabinet comprised "February 6 men" (members of the "National Union government" formed after the 6 February 1934 crisis after the Stavisky Affair) and mainstream politicians whose career prospects had been blocked by the triumph of the Popular Front in 1936.
Governments
There were five governments during the tenure of the Vichy regime, starting with the continuation of Pétain's position from the Third Republic, which dissolved itself and handed him full powers, leaving Pétain in absolute control of the new, "French State" as Pétain named it.
Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...
formed the first government in 1940. The second government was formed by Pierre-Étienne Flandin, and lasted just two months until February 1941.
François Darlan
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the ''École navale'' in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service d ...
was then head of government until April 1942, followed by Pierre Laval again until August 1944. The Vichy government fled into exile in Sigmaringen enclave, Sigmaringen in September 1944.
Foreign relations
Vichy France in 1940-1942 was recognised by most
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
and neutral powers during World War II, neutral powers, as well as the United States and the Soviet Union. During the war, Vichy France conducted military actions against armed incursions from Axis and Allied belligerents and was an example of armed neutrality. The most important such action was the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon on 27 November 1942 to prevent its capture by the Axis. Washington at first granted Vichy full diplomatic recognition, sending Admiral William D. Leahy as American ambassador. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull hoped to use American influence to encourage elements in the Vichy government opposed to military collaboration with Germany. Washington also hoped to encourage Vichy to resist German war demands, such as for air bases in French-mandated Syria or moving war supplies through French territories in North Africa. The US position was essentially that unless explicitly required by the armistice terms, France should take no action that could adversely affect Allied efforts in the war.
The US position towards Vichy France and was especially hesitant and inconsistent. Roosevelt disliked and regarded him as an "apprentice dictator".
[When the US wanted to take over France]
, Annie Lacroix-Riz, in ''Le Monde diplomatique'', May 2003 (English, French, etc.) The Americans first tried to support General
Maxime Weygand
Maxime Weygand (; 21 January 1867 – 28 January 1965) was a French military commander in World War I and World War II.
Born in Belgium, Weygand was raised in France and educated at the Saint-Cyr military academy in Paris. After graduating in 1 ...
, general delegate of Vichy for Africa until December 1941. After the first choice had failed, they turned to Henri Giraud shortly before the landing in North Africa on 8 November 1942. Finally, after Admiral
François Darlan
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the ''École navale'' in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service d ...
's turn towards the Free Forces (he had been prime minister from February 1941 to April 1942) they played him against .
[
US General Mark W. Clark of the combined Allied command made Darlan sign on 22 November 1942 a treaty putting "North Africa at the disposition of the Americans" and making France "a vassal country".][ Washington then imagined, between 1941 and 1942, a protectorate status for France, which would be submitted after the Liberation to an Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) like Germany. After the assassination of Darlan on 24 December 1942, the Americans turned again towards Giraud to whom had rallied Maurice Couve de Murville, who had financial responsibilities in Vichy, and Lemaigre-Dubreuil, a former member of ''La Cagoule'' and entrepreneur, as well as , general director of the ''Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie'' (National Bank for Trade and Industry).][
Moscow maintained full diplomatic relations with the Vichy government until 30 June 1941, when they were broken by Vichy expressing support for ]Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In response to British requests and sensitivities of the French Canadians, French-Canadian population, Canada, despite being at war with the Axis since 1939, maintained full diplomatic relations with the Vichy regime until early November 1942, when Case Anton led to the complete occupation of Vichy France by the Germans.
The British feared that the French naval fleet could end up in German hands and be used against its own naval forces, which were so vital to maintaining North Atlantic shipping and communications. Under the armistice, France had been allowed to retain the French Navy
The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...
, the , under strict conditions. Vichy pledged that the fleet would never fall into German hands but refused to send the fleet beyond Germany's reach by sending it to Britain or to far-away French colonies such as in the West Indies. That did not satisfy Winston Churchill, who ordered French ships in British ports to be seized by the Royal Navy. Shortly after the armistice (22 June 1940), Britain conducted the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, killing 1,297 French military personnel. Vichy severed diplomatic relations with Britain. The French squadron at Alexandria, under Admiral René-Emile Godfroy, was effectively interned until 1943, when an agreement was reached with Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham, commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet. After the Mers-el-Kebir incident, the British recognised Free France as the legitimate French government.
Switzerland and other neutral powers during World War II, neutral states maintained diplomatic relations with the Vichy regime until 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 ...
in 1944, when Pétain resigned and was deported to Germany for the creation of a forced government-in-exile.
French Indochina, Japan and Franco-Thai War
In June 1940, the Fall of France made the French hold on Indochina tenuous. The isolated colonial administration was cut off from outside help and from outside supplies. After negotiations with Japan, the French allowed the Japanese to set up military bases in Indochina. That seemingly-subservient behaviour convinced Major-General Plaek Pibulsonggram, the prime minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, that Vichy France would not seriously resist a campaign by the Thai military to recover parts of Cambodia and Laos that had been taken from Thailand by France in the early 20th century. In October 1940, the military forces of Thailand attacked across the border with Indochina and launched the Franco-Thai War. Although the French won an Battle of Koh Chang, important naval victory over the Thais, Japan forced the French to accept Japanese mediation of a peace treaty, which returned the disputed territory to Thai control. The French were left in place to administer the rump colony of Indochina until 9 March 1945, when the Japanese staged a Second French Indochina Campaign, coup d'état in French Indochina and took control, establishing their own colony, the Empire of Vietnam, as a puppet state controlled by Tokyo.
Colonial struggle with Free France
To counter the Vichy government, General Charles created the Free French Forces (FFL) after his Appeal of 18 June 1940 radio address. Initially, Churchill was ambivalent about and severed diplomatic ties with the Vichy government only when it became clear that Vichy would not join the Allies.
India and Oceania
Until 1962, France possessed French India, four colonies across India, the largest being Pondicherry. The colonies were small and non-contiguous but politically united. Immediately after the fall of France, the Governor General of French India, Louis Alexis Étienne Bonvin, declared that the French colonies in India would continue to fight with the British allies. Free French forces from that area and others participated in the Western Desert campaign, although news of the death of French-Indian soldiers caused some disturbances in Pondicherry. The French French Polynesia, possessions in Oceania joined the Free French in 1940 or in one case in 1942. They later served as bases for the Allied effort in the Pacific and contributed troops to the Free French Forces.
Following the Appeal of 18 June, debate arose among the population of French Polynesia. A 1940 French Polynesian referendum, referendum was organised on 2 September 1940 in Tahiti and Moorea, with outlying islands reporting agreement in the following days. The vote was 5564 to 18 in favour of joining the Free French. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, American forces identified French Polynesia as an ideal refuelling point between Hawaiian Islands, Hawaii and Australia and, with 's agreement, organised "Operation Bobcat" to send nine ships with 5000 American soldiers to build a naval refuelling base and airstrip and set up coastal defence guns on Bora Bora. That first experience was valuable in later Seabee (US Navy), Seabee (phonetic pronunciation of the naval acronym, CB, or Construction Battalion) efforts in the Pacific, and the Bora Bora base Seabees in World War II#The Pacific theater, supplied the Allied ships and planes that fought the battle of the Coral Sea. Troops from French Polynesia and New Caledonia formed a in 1940; became part of the 1st Free French Division in 1942, distinguishing themselves during the Battle of Bir Hakeim and subsequently combining with another unit to form the ; fought in the Italian Campaign (World War II), Italian Campaign, distinguishing themselves at the Garigliano during the Battle of Monte Cassino and on to Gothic Line, Tuscany; and participated in the Provence landings and onwards to the Liberation of France.
In the New Hebrides, Henri Sautot promptly declared allegiance to the Free French on 20 July, the first colonial head to do so.[Henri Sautot]
Order of Liberation The outcome was decided by a combination of patriotism and economic opportunism in the expectation that independence would result. Sautot subsequently sailed to New Caledonia, where he took control on 19 September.[ Its location on the edge of the Coral Sea and on the flank of Australia made New Caledonia become strategically critical in the effort to combat the Japanese expansion (1941–1942), Japanese advance in the Pacific in 1941–1942 and to protect the sea lanes between North America and Australia. Nouméa served as a headquarters of the United States Navy and Army in the South Pacific, and as a repair base for Allied vessels. New Caledonia contributed personnel both to the and to the Free French Naval Forces that saw action in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.
In Wallis and Futuna, the local administrator and bishop sided with Vichy but faced opposition from some of the population and clergy; their attempts at naming a local king in 1941 to buffer the territory from their opponents backfired as the newly elected king refused to declare allegiance to Pétain. The situation stagnated for a long while due to the remoteness of the islands and because no overseas ship visited the islands for 17 months after January 1941. An aviso sent from Nouméa took over Wallis on behalf of the Free French on 27 May 1942 and Futuna on 29 May 1942. That allowed American forces to build an airbase and seaplane base on Wallis (Navy 207) that served the Allied Pacific operations.
]
Americas
A Vichy France plan to have Western Union build powerful transmitters on Saint Pierre and Miquelon in 1941 to enable private trans-Atlantic communications was blocked after pressure by Roosevelt. On 24 December 1941 Free French forces on three corvettes, supported by a submarine landed and seized control of Saint Pierre and Miquelon on orders from Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
without reference to any of the Allied commanders.
French Guiana, on the northern coast of South America, removed its Vichy-supporting government on 22 March 1943, shortly after eight allied ships had been sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Guiana, and the arrival of American troops by air on 20 March.
Martinique became home to the bulk of the Gold reserve of the Bank of France, with 286 tons of gold transported there on the French cruiser Émile Bertin, French cruiser ''Émile Bertin'' in June 1940. The island was blockaded by the British navy until an agreement was reached to immobilise French ships in port. The British used the gold as collateral for Lend-Lease facilities from the Americans on the basis that it could be "acquired" at any time if needed. In July 1943, Free French sympathisers on the island took control of the gold and the fleet once Admiral Georges Robert (admiral), Georges Robert departed following a threat by America to launch a full-scale invasion.
Guadeloupe, in the French West Indies, also changed allegiance in 1943 after Admiral Georges Robert ordered police to fire on protestors, before he fled back to Europe.
Equatorial and West Africa
In Central Africa, three of the four colonies in French Equatorial Africa went over to the Free French almost immediately: French Chad on 26 August 1940, French Congo on 29 August 1940, and Ubangi-Shari on 30 August 1940. They were joined by the French League of Nations mandate of Cameroun on 27 August 1940.
On 23 September 1940, the Royal Navy and Free French forces under Gaulle launched Operation Menace, an attempt to seize the strategic Vichy-held port of Dakar in French West Africa (modern Senegal). After attempts to encourage them to join the Allies were rebuffed by the defenders, fierce fighting erupted between Vichy and Allied forces. was heavily damaged by torpedoes, and Free French troops landing at a beach south of the port were driven off by heavy fire. Even worse from a strategic point of view, bombers of the Vichy French Air Force based in North Africa began bombing the British base at Military history of Gibraltar during World War II, Gibraltar in response to the attack on Dakar. Shaken by the resolute Vichy defence and not wanting to further escalate the conflict, British and Free French forces withdrew on 25 September, bringing the battle to an end.
One colony in French Equatorial Africa, Gabon, had to be occupied by military force between 27 October and 12 November 1940. On 8 November 1940, Free French forces under the command of and Pierre Koenig, along with the assistance of the Royal Navy, Battle of Gabon, invaded Vichy-held Gabon. The capital, Libreville, was bombed and captured. The final Vichy troops in Gabon surrendered without any military confrontation with the Allies at Port-Gentil.
French Somaliland
The governor of French Somaliland (now Djibouti), Brigadier-General Paul Legentilhomme, had a garrison of seven battalions of Senegalese and Somali infantry, three batteries of field guns, four batteries of anti-aircraft guns, a company of light tanks, four companies of militia and irregulars, two platoons of the camel corps and an assortment of aircraft. After visiting from 1940, British General Archibald Wavell decided that Legentilhomme would command the military forces in both Somalilands in case of war against Italy. In June, an Italian force was assembled to capture the port city of Djibouti (city), Djibouti, the main military base. After the Fall of France in June, the neutralisation of Vichy French colonies allowed the Italians to concentrate on the more lightly defended British Somaliland. On 23 July, Legentilhomme was ousted by the pro-Vichy naval officer Pierre Nouailhetas and left on 5 August for Aden, to join the Free French.
In March 1941, the British enforcement of a strict contraband regime to prevent supplies being passed on to the Italians, lost its point after the conquest of the AOI. The British changed policy, with encouragement from the Free French, to "rally French Somaliland to the Allied cause without bloodshed". The Free French were to arrange a "voluntary ralliement" by propaganda (Operation Marie), and the British were to blockade the colony.
Wavell considered that if British pressure was applied, a rally would appear to have been coerced. Wavell preferred to let the propaganda continue and provided a small amount of supplies under strict control. When the policy had no effect, Wavell suggested negotiations with Vichy governor Louis Nouailhetas to use the port and railway. The suggestion was accepted by the British government but because of the concessions granted to the Vichy regime in Syria, proposals were made to invade the colony instead. In June, Nouailhetas was given an ultimatum, the blockade was tightened and the Italian garrison at Assab was defeated by an operation from Aden. For six months, Nouailhetas remained willing to grant concessions over the port and railway but would not tolerate Free French interference. In October, the blockade was reviewed, but the beginning of the war against Japan in December led to all but two blockade ships being withdrawn. On 2 January 1942, the Vichy government offered the use of the port and railway, subject to the lifting of the blockade but the British refused and ended the blockade unilaterally in March.
Syria and Madagascar
The next flashpoint between Britain and Vichy France came when a revolt in Iraq was put down by British forces in June 1941. The Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica, Italian Air Force aircraft, staging through the French possession of Syria, intervened in the fighting in small numbers. That highlighted Syria as a threat to British interests in the Middle East. Consequently, on 8 June, British and Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth forces invaded Syria and Lebanon; this was known as the Syria-Lebanon campaign, or Operation Exporter. The Syrian capital, Damascus, was captured on 17 June and the five-week campaign ended with the fall of Beirut and the Convention of Acre () on 14 July 1941.
The additional participation of Free French forces in the Syrian operation was controversial within Allied circles. It raised the prospect of Frenchmen shooting at Frenchmen, raising fears of a civil war. Additionally it was believed that the Free French were widely reviled within Vichy military circles and that Vichy forces in Syria were less likely to resist the British if they were not accompanied by elements of the Free French. Nevertheless, convinced Churchill to allow his forces to participate, although was forced to agree to a joint British and Free French proclamation promising that Syria and Lebanon would become fully independent at the end of the war.
From 5 May to 6 November 1942, British and Commonwealth forces conducted Operation Ironclad, known as the Battle of Madagascar, the seizure of the large, Vichy French-controlled island of Madagascar, which the British feared Japanese forces might use as a base to disrupt trade and communications in the Indian Ocean. The initial landing at Antsiranana, Diégo-Suarez was relatively quick, though it took British forces a further six months to gain control of the entire island.
French North Africa
Operation Torch was the American and British invasion of French North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia), started on 8 November 1942, with landings in Morocco and Algeria. The long-term goal was to clear German and Italian forces from North Africa, enhance naval control of the Mediterranean and prepare for an invasion of Italy in 1943. The Vichy forces initially resisted, Operation Torch, killing 479 Allied forces and wounding 720. Admiral François Darlan
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the ''École navale'' in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service d ...
initiated co-operation with the Allies, who recognised Darlan's self-nomination as High Commissioner of France (head of civil government) for North and West Africa. He ordered Vichy forces there to cease resisting and to co-operate with the Allies, and they did so. When the Tunisia Campaign was fought, the French forces in North Africa had gone over to the Allied side and joined the Free French.
In North Africa, after the 8 November 1942 putsch by the French Resistance, most Vichy figures were arrested, including General Alphonse Juin, chief commander in North Africa, and Admiral François Darlan
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the ''École navale'' in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service d ...
. Darlan was released, and US General Dwight D. Eisenhower finally accepted his self-nomination as High Commissioner of North Africa and French West Africa (, AOF), a move that enraged , who refused to recognise Darlan's status. After Darlan signed an armistice with the Allies and took power in North Africa, Germany violated the 1940 armistice with France and invaded Vichy France on 10 November 1942 in the operation code-named Case Anton, triggering the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon.
Henri Giraud arrived in Algiers on 10 November 1942 and agreed to subordinate himself to Admiral Darlan as the French Africa army commander. Even though Darlan was now in the Allied camp, he maintained the repressive Vichy system in North Africa, including concentration camps in France, concentration camps in southern Algeria and racist laws. Detainees were also forced to work on the Trans-Saharan Railway. Jewish goods were "aryanized" (stolen), and a special Jewish Affairs service was created, directed by Pierre Gazagne. Numerous Jewish children were prohibited from going to school, which even Vichy had not implemented in Metropolitan France.[ Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942 in Algiers by the young monarchist Bonnier de La Chapelle. Although had been a member of the resistance group led by Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie, he is believed to have acted as an individual.
After Darlan's assassination, Henri Giraud became his ''de facto'' successor in French Africa with Allied support. That occurred through a series of consultations between Giraud and . The latter wanted to pursue a political position in France and agreed to have Giraud as commander-in-chief, who was more qualified militarily. Later, the Americans sent Jean Monnet to counsel Giraud and to press him to repeal the Vichy laws. After difficult negotiations, Giraud agreed to suppress the racist laws and to liberate Vichy prisoners from the southern Algerian concentration camps. The Cremieux decree, which granted French citizenship to Jews in Algeria and had been repealed by Vichy, was immediately restored by Gaulle.
Giraud took part in the Casablanca Conference (1943), Casablanca Conference, with Roosevelt, Churchill, and in January 1943. The Allies discussed their general strategy for the war and recognised joint leadership of North Africa by Giraud and . Giraud and then became co-presidents of the French Committee of National Liberation, which unified the Free French Forces and territories controlled by them and had been founded in late 1943. Democratic rule for the European population was restored in French rule in Algeria, French Algeria, and the Communists and Jews liberated from the concentration camps.][
In late April 1945 , secretary of the general government headed by Yves Chataigneau, took advantage of his absence to exile anti-imperialist leader Messali Hadj and arrest the leaders of his Algerian People's Party (PPA).][ On the day of the Liberation of France, the GPRF would harshly repress a rebellion in Algeria during the Sétif massacre of 8 May 1945, which has been characterized by some historians as the "real beginning of the Algerian War".][
]
Collaboration with Nazi Germany
Vichy is often described as a German puppet state, although it has also been argued it had an agenda of its own.
Historians distinguish between state collaboration followed by the Vichy regime, and "collaborationists", who were private French citizens eager to collaborate with Germany and who pushed towards a radicalisation of the regime. ''Pétainistes'', on the other hand, were direct supporters of Marshal Pétain rather than of Germany (although they accepted Pétain's state collaboration). State collaboration was sealed by the Montoire (Loir-et-Cher) interview in Hitler's train on 24 October 1940, during which Pétain and Hitler shook hands and agreed on co-operation between the two states. Organized by Pierre Laval, a strong proponent of collaboration, the interview and the handshake were photographed and exploited by Nazi propaganda to gain the support of the civilian population. On 30 October 1940, Pétain made state collaboration official, declaring on the radio: "I enter today on the path of collaboration." On 22 June 1942, Laval declared that he was "hoping for the victory of Germany". The sincere desire to collaborate did not stop the Vichy government from organising the arrest and even sometimes the execution of German spies entering the Vichy zone.
The composition and policies of the Vichy cabinet were mixed. Many Vichy officials, such as Pétain, were reactionary, reactionaries who felt that France's unfortunate fate was a result of its republican character and the actions of its left-wing governments of the 1930s, in particular of the Popular Front (France), Popular Front (1936–1938) led by Léon Blum. Charles Maurras, a monarchist writer and founder of the ''Action Française'' movement, judged that Pétain's accession to power was, in that respect, a "divine surprise", and many people of his persuasion believed it preferable to have an authoritarian government similar to that of Francisco Franco's Spain, even if under Germany's yoke, than to have a republican government. Others, like Joseph Darnand, were strong Anti-Semitism, anti-Semites and overt Nazi sympathizers. A number of these joined the units of the ''Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme'' (Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevik, Bolshevism) fighting on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front, later becoming the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French), SS Charlemagne Division.
On the other hand, Technocracy (bureaucratic), technocrats such as Jean Bichelonne and engineers from the Groupe X-Crise used their position to push various state, administrative, and economic reforms. These reforms have been cited as evidence of a continuity of the French administration before and after the war. Many of these civil servants and the reforms they advocated were retained after the war. Just as the necessities of a war economy during the First World War had pushed forward state measures to reorganise the economy of France against the prevailing classical liberalism, classical liberal theories – structures retained after the 1919 Treaty of Versailles – reforms adopted during World War II were kept and extended. Along with the 15 March 1944 Charter of the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR), which gathered all Resistance movements under one unified political body, these reforms were a primary instrument in the establishment of post-war ''dirigisme'', a kind of semi-planned economy which led to France becoming a modern social democracy. An example of such continuities is the creation of the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems by Alexis Carrel, a renowned physician who also supported eugenics. This institution was renamed as the Institut national d'études démographiques, National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) after the war and exists to this day. Another example is the creation of the national statistics institute, renamed INSEE after the Liberation.
The reorganisation and unification of the French police by René Bousquet
René Bousquet (; 11 May 1909 – 8 June 1993) was a high-ranking French political appointee who served as secretary general to the Vichy French police from May 1942 to 31 December 1943. For personal heroism, he had become a protégé of promin ...
, who created the (GMR, Reserve Mobile Groups), is another example of Vichy policy reform and restructuring maintained by subsequent governments. A national paramilitary police force, the GMR was occasionally used in actions against the French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
, but its main purpose was to enforce Vichy authority through intimidation and repression of the civilian population. After Liberation, some of its units were merged with the Free French Forces, Free French Army to form the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS, Republican Security Companies), France's main anti-riot force.
Racial policies and collaboration
Germany interfered little in internal French affairs for the first two years after the armistice, as long as public order was maintained. As soon as it was established, Pétain's government voluntarily took measures against "undesirables": History of the Jews in France, Jews, ''metic, métèques'' (immigrants from Mediterranean countries), Freemasonry, Freemasons, French Communist Party, Communists, Romani people, Romani, Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, homosexuals, and left-wing activists. Inspired by Charles Maurras's conception of the "Anti-France" (which he defined as the "four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons, and foreigners"), Vichy persecuted these supposed enemies.
In July 1940, Vichy set up a special commission charged with reviewing naturalisations granted since the 1927 French nationality law, reform of the nationality law. Between June 1940 and August 1944, 15,000 persons, mostly Jews, were denaturalised. This bureaucratic decision was instrumental in their subsequent internment in the green ticket roundup.
The Internment camps in France inaugurated by the Third Republic were immediately put to new use, ultimately becoming transit camps for the implementation of the Holocaust and the extermination of all undesirables, including the Romani people (who refer to the extermination of the Romani as Porrajmos). A Vichy law of 4 October 1940 authorised internments of foreign Jews on the sole basis of a French prefectures, prefectoral order, and the first raids took place in May 1941. Vichy imposed no restrictions on Black people in France, black people in the Unoccupied Zone; the regime even had a mixed-race cabinet minister, the Martinique-born lawyer Henry Lémery.
The Third Republic had first opened concentration camps during World War I for the internment of enemy aliens and later used them for other purposes. Camp Gurs, for example, had been set up in southwestern France after the Catalonia Offensive, fall of Catalonia, in the first months of 1939, during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), to receive the Republican refugees, including International Brigades, Brigadists from all nations, fleeing the Francoists. After Édouard Daladier's government (April 1938 – March 1940) took the decision to outlaw the French Communist Party (PCF) following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, German–Soviet non-aggression pact (the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) in August 1939, these camps were also used to intern French communists. Drancy internment camp was founded in 1939 for this use; it later became the central transit camp through which all deportees passed on their way to concentration and extermination camps in the Third Reich and Eastern Europe. When the Phoney War
The Phoney War (french: Drôle de guerre; german: Sitzkrieg) was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germa ...
started with France's declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939, these camps were used to intern enemy aliens. These included German Jews and anti-fascists, but any German citizen (or other Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
national) could also be interned in Camp Gurs and others. As the Wehrmacht advanced into Northern France, common prisoners evacuated from prisons were also interned in these camps. Camp Gurs received its first contingent of political prisoners in June 1940. It included left-wing activists (communists, anarchism in France, anarchists, trade-unionists, anti-militarists) and pacifists, as well as French Fascism, French fascists who supported Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946), Italy and Germany. Finally, after Pétain's proclamation of the "French State" and the beginning of the implementation of the "''Révolution nationale
The ''Révolution nationale'' (, ''National Revolution'') was the official ideological program promoted by the Vichy regime (the “French State”) which had been established in July 1940 and led by Marshal Philippe Pétain. Pétain's regime wa ...
''" (National Revolution), the French administration opened up many concentration camps, to the point that, as historian Maurice Rajsfus writes, "The quick opening of new camps created employment, and the Gendarmerie never ceased to hire during this period."
Besides the political prisoners already detained there, Gurs was then used to intern foreign Jews, stateless persons, Romani, homosexuals, and prostitutes. Vichy opened its first internment camp in the northern zone on 5 October 1940, in Aincourt, in the Seine-et-Oise department, which it quickly filled with PCF members. The Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, in the Doubs, was used to intern Romani. The Camp des Milles, near Aix-en-Provence, was the largest internment camp in the Southeast of France; twenty-five hundred Jews were deported from there following the #August 1942 and January 1943 raids, August 1942 raids. Exiled Republican, antifascist Spaniards who had sought refuge in France after the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War were then deported, and 5,000 of them died in Mauthausen concentration camp.[Film documentary]
on the website of the ''Cité nationale de l'histoire de l'immigration'' In contrast, French colonial soldiers were interned by the Germans in French territory instead of being deported.[
Besides the concentration camps opened by Vichy, the Germans also opened some Ilags () for the detention of enemy aliens on French territory; in Alsace, which was under the direct administration of the Reich, they opened the Natzweiler, Natzweiler camp, the only concentration camp created by the Nazis on French territory. Natzweiler included a gas chamber, which was used to exterminate at least 86 detainees (mostly Jewish) with the aim of obtaining a collection of undamaged skeletons for the use of Nazi professor August Hirt.
The Vichy government took a number of racially motivated measures. In August 1940, laws against antisemitism in the media (the Marchandeau Act) were repealed, while decree n°1775 of 5 September 1943 denaturalised a number of French citizens, in particular Jews from Eastern Europe.][ Foreigners were rounded-up in "Foreign Workers' Groups" (''groupements de travailleurs étrangers'') and as with the colonial troops, used by the Germans as manpower.][ The October law on the status of Jews excluded them from the civil administration and numerous other professions.
Vichy also enacted racial laws in its territories in North Africa. "The history of the Holocaust in France's three North African colonies (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) is intrinsically tied to France's fate during this period."
With regard to economic contribution to the German economy, it is estimated that France provided 42% of the total foreign aid.
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Eugenics policies
In 1941, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize winner Alexis Carrel, an early proponent of eugenics and euthanasia, and a member of Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party (PPF), advocated for the creation of the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems (), using connections to the Pétain cabinet. Charged with the "study, in all of its aspects, of measures aimed at safeguarding, improving and developing the French population in all of its activities", the Foundation was created by decree of the collaborationist Vichy regime in 1941, and Carrel was appointed as "regent".[See Reggiani]
Alexis Carrel, the Unknown: Eugenics and Population Research under Vichy
, ''French Historical Studies'', 2002; 25: 331–356 The Foundation also had for some time as general secretary François Perroux.
The Foundation was behind the 16 December 1942 Act mandating the "prenuptial certificate", which required all couples seeking marriage to submit to a biological examination, to ensure the "good health" of the spouses, in particular with regard to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and "life hygiene". Carrel's institute also conceived the "scholar booklet" ("), which could be used to record students' grades in Education in France, French secondary schools and thus classify and select them according to scholastic performance. Besides these eugenic activities aimed at classifying the population and improving its health, the Foundation also supported an 11 October 1946 law instituting occupational medicine, enacted by the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) after the Liberation.
The Foundation initiated studies on demographics (Robert Gessain, Paul Vincent, Jean Bourgeois), nutrition (Jean Sutter), and housing (Jean Merlet), as well as the first polls (Jean Stoetzel). The foundation, which after the war became the INED demographics institute, employed 300 researchers from the summer of 1942 to the end of the autumn of 1944. "The foundation was chartered as a public institution under the joint supervision of the ministries of finance and public health. It was given financial autonomy and a budget of forty million francs, roughly one franc per inhabitant: a true luxury considering the burdens imposed by the German Occupation on the nation's resources. By way of comparison, the whole Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) was given a budget of fifty million francs."[
Alexis Carrel had previously published in 1935 the best-selling book ("Man, This Unknown"). Since the early 1930s, Carrel had advocated the use of gas chambers to rid humanity of its "inferior stock", endorsing the scientific racism discourse. One of the founders of these pseudoscience, pseudoscientifical theories had been Arthur de Gobineau in his 1853–1855 essay titled "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races".] In the 1936 preface to the German edition of his book, Alexis Carrel had added a praise to the eugenics policies of the Third Reich, writing the following:
The German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous.
Carrel also wrote this in his book:
The conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to ensure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gasses. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts.
Alexis Carrel had also taken an active part to a symposium in Pontigny organised by Jean Coutrot, the "". Scholars such as Lucien Bonnafé, Patrick Tort, and Max Lafont have accused Carrel of responsibility for the execution of thousands of mentally ill or impaired patients under Vichy.
Antisemitic laws
A Nazi ordinance dated 21 September 1940 forced Jews of the occupied zone to declare themselves as such at a police station or Prefectures of France, sub-prefectures (). Under the responsibility of André Tulard, head of the Service on Foreign Persons and Jewish Questions at the Prefecture of Police of Paris, a filing system registering Jewish people was created. Tulard had previously created such a filing system under the Third Republic, registering members of the French Communist Party, Communist Party (PCF). In the department of the Seine, encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs, nearly 150,000 persons, unaware of the upcoming danger and assisted by the police, presented themselves at police stations in accordance with the military order. The registered information was then centralised by the French police, who constructed, under the direction of inspector Tulard, a central filing system. According to the Theodor Dannecker, Dannecker report, "this filing system is subdivided into files alphabetically classed, Jewish with French nationality and foreign Jewish having files of different colours, and the files were also classed, according to profession, nationality and street [of residency]". These files were then handed over to Theodor Dannecker, head of the Gestapo in France, under the orders of Adolf Eichmann, head of the RSHA IV-D. They were used by the Gestapo on various raids, among them the August 1941 raid in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, which resulted in 3,200 foreign and 1,000 French Jews being interned in various camps, including Drancy internment camp, Drancy.
On 3 October 1940, the Vichy government promulgated the Law on the status of Jews, which created a special underclass of French Jewish citizens. The law excluded Jews from the administration, the armed forces, entertainment, arts, media, and certain professions, such as teaching, law, and medicine. The next day, a Law regarding foreign nationals of the Jewish race, law regarding foreign Jews was signed authorising their detention. A Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs (CGQJ, ) was created on 29 March 1941. It was directed by Xavier Vallat until May 1942 and then by Darquier de Pellepoix until February 1944. Mirroring the Reich Association of Jews, the ''Union générale des israélites de France'' was founded.
The police oversaw the confiscation of telephones and radios from Jewish homes and enforced a curfew on Jews starting in February 1942. They also enforced requirements that Jews not appear in public places and ride only on the last car of the Parisian metro.
Along with many French police officials, André Tulard was present on the day of the inauguration of Drancy internment camp in 1941, which was used largely by French police as the central transit camp for detainees captured in France. All Jews and others "undesirables" passed through Drancy before heading to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, camps.
July 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup
In July 1942, under German orders, the French police organised the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup () under orders by René Bousquet and his second in Paris, Jean Leguay
Jean Leguay (29 November 1909 – 2 July 1989) was the second-in-command of the French National Police during the Nazi Occupation of France. He was complicit in the 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris and their deportation from France to Nazi extermi ...
, with co-operation from authorities of the SNCF, the state railway company. The police arrested 13,152 Jews, including 4,051 children—which the ''Gestapo'' had not asked for—and 5,082 women, on 16 and 17 July and imprisoned them in the ''Vélodrome d'Hiver'' (Winter Velodrome) in unhygienic conditions. They were led to Drancy internment camp (run by Nazi Alois Brunner and French constabulary police) and crammed into box cars and shipped by rail to Auschwitz. Most of the victims died en route due to lack of food or water. The remaining survivors were sent to the gas chambers. This action alone represented more than a quarter of the 42,000 French Jews sent to concentration camps in 1942, of whom only 811 would return after the end of the war. Although the Nazi VT (Verfügungstruppe) had directed the action, French police authorities vigorously participated. "There was no effective police resistance until the end of Spring of 1944", wrote historians Jean-Luc Einaudi and Maurice Rajsfus.
August 1942 and January 1943 raids
The French police, headed by Bousquet, arrested 7,000 Jews in the southern zone in August 1942. 2,500 of them transited through the Camp des Milles near Aix-en-Provence before joining Drancy. Then, on 22, 23, and 24 January 1943, assisted by Bousquet's police force, the Germans organised a raid in Marseilles. During the Battle of Marseilles, the French police checked the identity documents of 40,000 people, and the operation sent 2,000 Marseillese people in the death trains, leading to the extermination camps. The operation also encompassed the expulsion of an entire neighbourhood (30,000 persons) in the Old Port of Marseille, Old Port before its destruction. For this occasion, SS-Gruppenführer Karl Oberg, in charge of the German Police in France, made the trip from Paris and transmitted to Bousquet orders directly received from Heinrich Himmler. It is another notable case of the French police's willful collaboration with the Nazis.
Jewish death toll
In 1940, approximately 350,000 Jews lived in metropolitan France, less than half of them with French citizenship (the others being foreign, mostly exiles from Germany during the 1930s). About 200,000 of them, and the large majority of foreign Jews, resided in Paris and its outskirts. Among the 150,000 French Jews, about 30,000, generally native from Central Europe, had been naturalised French during the 1930s. Of the total, approximately 25,000 French Jews and 50,000 foreign Jews were deported. According to historian Robert Paxton
Robert Owen Paxton (born June 15, 1932) is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. He is Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History ...
, 76,000 Jews were deported and died in concentration and extermination camps. Including the Jews who died in concentration camps in France, this would have made for a total figure of 90,000 Jewish deaths (a quarter of the total Jewish population before the war, by his estimate).[Le rôle du gouvernement de Vichy dans la déportation des juifs]
notes taken by Evelyne Marsura during a conference of Robert Paxton
Robert Owen Paxton (born June 15, 1932) is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. He is Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History ...
at Lyon on 4 November 2000 Paxton's numbers imply that 14,000 Jews died in French concentration camps, but the systematic census of Jewish deportees from France (citizens or not) drawn under Serge Klarsfeld concluded that 3,000 had died in French concentration camps and 1,000 more had been shot. Of the approximately 76,000 deported, 2,566 survived. The total thus reported is slightly below 77,500 dead (somewhat less than a quarter of the Jewish population in France in 1940).
Proportionally, either number makes for a lower death toll than in some other countries (in the Netherlands, 75% of the Jewish population was murdered).[ This fact has been used as arguments by supporters of Vichy; according to Paxton, the figure would have been greatly lower if the "French state" had not willfully collaborated with Germany, which lacked staff for police activities. During the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942, Laval ordered the deportation of children, against explicit German orders. Paxton pointed out that if the total number of victims had not been higher, it was due to the shortage in wagons, the resistance of the civilian population, and deportation in other countries (notably in Italy).][
]
Government responsibility
For decades, the French government argued that the French Republic had been dismantled when Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
instituted a new French State during the war and that the Republic had been reestablished when the war was over. It was not for the Republic, therefore, to apologise for events that happened while it had not existed and that had been carried out by a State it did not recognise. For example, former President François Mitterrand had maintained that the Vichy Government, not France's Republic, was responsible. This position was more recently reiterated by Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front (France), National Front Party, during the 2017 election campaign.
The first official admission that the French State had been complicit in the deportation of 76,000 Jews during WW II was made in 1995 by then President Jacques Chirac, at the site of the Vélodrome d'Hiver, where 13,000 Jews had been rounded up for deportation to death camps in July 1942. "France, on that day [16 July 1942], committed the irreparable. Breaking its word, it handed those who were under its protection over to their executioners," he said. Those responsible for the roundup were "450 policemen and gendarmes, French, under the authority of their leaders [who] obeyed the demands of the Nazis..... the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state".
On 16 July 2017, also at a ceremony at the Vel' d'Hiv site, President Emmanuel Macron denounced the country's role in the Holocaust in France and the historical revisionism that denied France's responsibility for the 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup,
roundup and subsequent deportation of 13,000 Jews. "It was indeed France that organised this", Macron insisted, French police collaborating with the Nazis. "Not a single German" was directly involved," he added. Macron was even more specific than Chirac had been in stating that the Government during the War was certainly that of France. "It is convenient to see the Vichy regime as born of nothingness, returned to nothingness. Yes, it's convenient, but it is false. We cannot build pride upon a lie."
Macron made a subtle reference to Chirac's remark when he added, "I say it again here. It was indeed France that organized the roundup, the deportation, and thus, for almost all, death."
''Collaborationnistes''
Stanley Hoffmann in 1974 and then other historians such as Robert Paxton
Robert Owen Paxton (born June 15, 1932) is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. He is Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History ...
and Jean-Pierre Azéma have used the term ''collaborationnistes'' to refer to fascists and Nazi sympathisers who, for ideological reasons, wished a reinforced collaboration with Hitler's Germany. Examples are the Parti Populaire Français (PPF) leader Jacques Doriot, the writer Robert Brasillach or Marcel Déat. A principal motivation and ideological foundation among ''collaborationnistes'' was Anti-communism, anticommunism.
''Collaborationnisme'' ( en, collaborationism) should be distinguished from collaboration. ''Collaborationism'' refers to those, primarily from the fascist right, who embraced the goal of a German victory as their own, whereas ''collaboration'' refers to those of the French who for whatever reason collaborated with the Germans. Organizations such as ''La Cagoule'' opposed the Third Republic, particularly while the left-wing Popular Front (France), Popular Front was in power.
Collaborationists may have influenced the Vichy government's policies, but ultra-collaborationists never comprised the majority of the government before 1944.
To enforce the régime's will, some paramilitary organisations were created. One example was the ' (LFC) (French Legion of Fighters), including at first only former combatants but quickly adding ''Amis de la Légion'' and cadets of the Légion, who had never seen battle but supported Pétain's régime. The name was then quickly changed to ''Légion Française des Combattants et des volontaires de la Révolution Nationale'' (French Legion of Fighters and Volunteers of the National Revolution). Joseph Darnand created a ''Service d'Ordre Légionnaire'' (SOL), which consisted mostly of French supporters of the Nazis and was fully approved by Pétain.
Social and economic history
Vichy authorities strongly opposed "modern" social trends and tried "national regeneration" to restore behaviour more in line with traditional Catholicism. Philip Manow argued that, "Vichy represents the authoritarian, antidemocratic solution that the French political right, in coalition with the national Church hierarchy, had sought repeatedly during the interwar period and almost put in place in 1934". Calling for "National Regeneration", Vichy reversed many liberal policies and began tight supervision of the economy, with central planning as a key feature.
Labour unions came under tight government control. There were no elections. The independence of women was reversed, with an emphasis put on motherhood. Government agencies had to fire married women employees. Conservative Catholics became prominent. Paris lost its avant-garde status in European art and culture. The media were tightly controlled and stressed virulent anti-Semitism and, after June 1941, anti-Bolshevism. Hans Petter Graver wrote that Vichy "is notorious for its enactment of anti-Semitic laws and decrees, and these were all loyally enforced by the judiciary".
Economy
Vichy rhetoric exalted the skilled labourer and small businessman. In practice, the needs of artisans for raw materials were neglected in favour of big businesses. The General Committee for the Organization of Commerce (CGOC) was a national program to modernise and professionalise small business.
In 1940, the government took direct control of all production, which was synchronised with German demands. It replaced free trade unions with compulsory state unions that dictated labour policy without regard to the voice or needs of the workers. The centralised bureaucratic control of the French economy was not a success, as German demands grew heavier and more unrealistic, passive resistance and inefficiencies multiplied and Allied bombers hit the rail yards. Vichy made the first comprehensive long-range plans for the French economy, but the government had never attempted a comprehensive overview. De Gaulle's provisional government in 1944–45 quietly used the Vichy plans as a base for its own reconstruction program. The Monnet Plan of 1946 reaped the heritage of previous efforts at planning in the 1930s, Vichy, the Resistance, and the Provisional Government. Monnet's plan to modernize the economy was designed to improve the country's competitive position so as to prepare it for participation in an open multilateral system and, thereby, to reduce the need for trade protection.
Forced labour
Nazi Germany kept French prisoners-of-war as forced labourers throughout the war. They added compulsory and volunteer workers from occupied nations, especially in metal factories. The shortage of volunteers led the Vichy government to pass a law in September 1942 that effectively deported workers to Germany, where they were 15% of the labour force by August 1944. The largest number worked in the giant Krupp steel works in Essen. Low pay, long hours, frequent bombings and crowded air raid shelters added to the unpleasant conditions of poor housing, inadequate heating, limited food, and poor medical care, all compounded by harsh Nazi discipline. The workers finally returned home in the summer of 1945. The forced labour draft encouraged the French Resistance and undermined the Vichy government.
Food shortages
Civilians suffered shortages of all varieties of consumer goods. The rationing system was stringent and badly mismanaged, leading to malnourishment, black markets and hostility to state management of the food supply. The Germans seized about 20% of the French food production, causing severe disruption to the French household economy. French farm production fell by half because of lack of fuel, fertiliser and workers. Even so, the Germans seized half the meat, 20% of the produce and 2% of the champagne. Supply problems quickly affected French stores, which lacked most items. The government answered by rationing, but German officials set the policies, and hunger prevailed, especially affecting youth in urban areas. The queues lengthened in front of shops.
Some people, including German soldiers, benefited from the black market, where food was sold without tickets at very high prices. Farmers especially diverted meat to the black market and so there was much less for the open market. Counterfeit food tickets were also in circulation. Direct buying from farmers in the countryside and barter against cigarettes became common although those activities were strictly forbidden and thus carried the risk of confiscation and fines.
Food shortages were most acute in the large cities. In the more remote country villages, clandestine slaughtering, vegetable gardens and the availability of milk products permitted better survival. The official ration provided starvation level diets of 1013 or fewer calories a day, supplemented by home gardens and especially black market purchases.
Women
The two million French soldiers held as prisoners-of-war and forced labourers in Germany throughout the war were not at risk of death in combat, but the anxieties of separation for their 800,000 wives were high. The government provided a modest allowance, but one in ten became prostitutes to support their families.
Meanwhile, the Vichy regime promoted a highly-traditional model of female roles. The National Revolution's official ideology fostered the patriarchal family, headed by a man with a subservient wife, who was devoted to her many children. It gave women a key symbolic role to carry out the national regeneration and used propaganda, women's organisations and legislation to promote maternity; patriotic duty and female submission to marriage, home and children's education. The falling birth rate appeared to be a grave problem to Vichy, which introduced family allowances and opposed birth control and abortion. Conditions were very difficult for housewives, as food was short as well as most necessities. Mother's Day became a major date in the Vichy calendar, with festivities in the towns and schools featuring the award of medals to mothers of numerous children. Divorce laws were made much more stringent, and restrictions were placed on the employment of married women. Family allowances, which had begun in the 1930s, were continued and became a vital lifeline for many families as a monthly cash bonus for having more children. In 1942, the birth rate started to rise, and Demographics of France#After World War II, by 1945, it was higher than it had been for a century.
On the other side, women of the Resistance, many of whom were associated with combat groups linked to the French Communist Party, broke the gender barrier by fighting side by side with men. After the war, their services were ignored, but France did give women the vote in 1944.
German invasion, November 1942
Hitler ordered ''Case Anton'' to occupy Corsica and then the rest of the unoccupied southern zone in immediate reaction to the landing of the Allies in North Africa (Operation Torch
Operation Torch (8 November 1942 – Run for Tunis, 16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of secu ...
) on 8 November 1942. Following the conclusion of the operation on 12 November, Vichy's remaining military forces were disbanded. Vichy continued to exercise its remaining jurisdiction over almost all of metropolitan France, with the residual power devolved into the hands of Laval, until the gradual collapse of the regime following the Allied invasion in June 1944. On 7 September 1944, following the Allied invasion of France, the remainders of the Vichy government cabinet fled to Germany and established a Puppet state, puppet government in exile in the so-called Sigmaringen enclave. That rump government finally fell when the city was taken by the Allied French army in April 1945.
Part of the residual legitimacy of the Vichy regime resulted from the continued ambivalence of U.S. and other leaders. President Roosevelt continued to cultivate Vichy, and promoted General Henri Giraud as a preferable alternative to , despite the poor performance of Vichy forces in North Africa—Admiral François Darlan
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the ''École navale'' in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service d ...
had landed in Algiers the day before Operation Torch. Algiers was headquarters of the Vichy French 19th Army Corps (France), 19th Army Corps, which controlled Vichy military units in North Africa. Darlan was neutralised within 15 hours by a 400-strong French resistance force. Roosevelt and Churchill accepted Darlan, rather than , as the French leader in North Africa. De Gaulle had not even been informed of the landing in North Africa.[Extraits de l'entretien d'Annie Rey-Goldzeiguer]
[1, avec Christian Makarian et Dominique Simonnet, publié dans ''l'Express'' du 14 mars 2002], on the Ligue des droits de l'homme, LDH website The United States also resented the Free French taking control of St Pierre and Miquelon on 24 December 1941, because, Secretary of State Cordell Hull believed, it interfered with a U.S.-Vichy agreement to maintain the status quo with respect to French territorial possessions in the western hemisphere.
Following the invasion of France via Normandy and Provence (Operation Overlord and Operation Dragoon) and the departure of the Vichy leaders, the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union finally recognised the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) headed by as the legitimate government of France on 23 October 1944. Before that, the first return of democracy to Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...
since 1940 had occurred with the declaration of the Maquis du Vercors, Free Republic of Vercors on 3 July 1944, at the behest of the Free French, Free French government—but that act of French Resistance, resistance was quashed by an overwhelming German attack by the end of July.
Decline of the regime
Independence of the SOL
In 1943 the ''Service d'ordre légionnaire'' (SOL) collaborationist militia, headed by Joseph Darnand, became independent and was transformed into the "''Milice française''" (French Militia). Officially directed by Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...
himself, the SOL was led by Darnand, who held an SS rank and pledged an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. Under Darnand and his sub-commanders, such as Paul Touvier and Jacques de Bernonville, the Milice was responsible for helping the German forces and police in the repression of the French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
and ''Maquis (World War II), Maquis''.
Sigmaringen commission
Following the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, Pétain and his ministers were taken to Sigmaringen by the German forces. After both Pétain and Laval refused to cooperate, Fernand de Brinon was selected by the Germans to establish a pseudo-government in exile at Sigmaringen. Pétain refused to participate further and the Sigmaringen operation had little to no authority. The offices used the official title "French Government Commission for the Defense of National Interests" (french: link=no, Commission gouvernementale française pour la défense des intérêts nationaux) and informally was known as the "French Delegation" (french: link=no, Délégation française). The enclave had its own radio station (Radio-patrie, Ici la France) and official press (, ''Le Petit Parisien''), and hosted the embassies of Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
Germany and Japan, as well as an Italian consulate. The population of the enclave was about 6,000, including known collaborationist journalists, the writers Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Lucien Rebatet, the actor Robert Le Vigan, and their families, as well as 500 soldiers, 700 French SS, prisoners of war and Service du travail obligatoire, French civilian forced labourers.
The Commission lasted for seven months, surviving Allied bombing runs, poor nutrition and housing, and a bitterly cold winter where temperatures plunged to , while residents nervously watched the advancing Allied troops drawing closer and discussed rumors.
On 21 April 1945 General de Lattre ordered his forces to take Sigmaringen. The end came within days, and by the 26th, Pétain was in the hands of French authorities in Switzerland while Laval had fled to Spain. Brinon, Luchaire, and Darnand were captured, tried, and executed by 1947. Other members escaped to Italy or Spain.
Aftermath
Provisional government
The Free French, concerned that the Allies might decide to put France under administration of the Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories, strove to establish the Provisional Government of the French Republic quickly. The first action of the Provisional Government was to reestablish republican legality throughout Metropolitan France.
The provisional government considered the Vichy government to have been unconstitutional and all of its actions therefore without legitimate authority. All "constitutional acts, legislative or regulatory" taken by the Vichy government, as well as decrees taken to implement them, were declared null and void by the Ordinance of 9 August 1944. Inasmuch as blanket rescission of all acts taken by Vichy, including measures that might have been taken by a legitimate republican government, was deemed impractical, the order provided that acts not expressly noted as nullified in the order were to continue to receive "provisional application". Many acts were explicitly repealed, including all acts that Vichy had called "constitutional acts", all acts that discriminated against Jews, all acts related to so-called "secret societies" (such as Freemasons), and all acts that established special tribunals.
Collaborationist paramilitary and political organisations, such as the Milice and the ''Service d'ordre légionnaire'', were also dissolved.
The Provisional Government also took steps to replace local governments, including governments that had been suppressed by the Vichy regime through new elections or by extending the terms of those who had been elected not later than 1939.
Purges
After the liberation, France was swept for a short period with a wave of executions of collaborationists. Some were brought to the Vélodrome d'hiver, Fresnes prison or the Drancy internment camp. Women who were suspected of having romantic liaisons with Germans or more often of being prostitutes who had entertained German customers were publicly humiliated by having their heads shaved. Those who had engaged in the black market were also stigmatised as "war profiteers" (), and popularly called "BOF" (, or Butter Eggs Cheese, because of the products sold at outrageous prices during the Occupation). The Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF, 1944–46) quickly reestablished order, and brought collaborationists before the courts. Many convicted collaborationists were then given amnesty under the French Fourth Republic, Fourth Republic (1946–54).
Four different periods are distinguished by historians:
* the first phase of popular convictions ( – wild purge): extrajudicial executions and shaving of women's heads. Estimations by préfecture de police, police prefects made in 1948 and 1952 counted as many as 6,000 executions before the Liberation and 4,000 afterward.
* the second phase (''épuration légale'' or legal purge), which began with Charles 's 26 and 27 June 1944 purge ''ordonnances'' ('s first ordonnance instituting purge Commissions was enacted on 18 August 1943): judgments of collaborationists by the , who condemned approximately 120,000 persons (e.g. Charles Maurras, the leader of the royalist ''Action Française'', was thus condemned to a life sentence on 25 January 1945), including 1,500 death sentences (Joseph Darnand, head of the Milice, and Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...
, head of the French government, were executed after trial on 4 October 1945, Robert Brasillach, executed on 6 February 1945, etc.), but many of those who survived that phase were later given amnesty.
* the third phase, more lenient towards collaborationists (the trial of Philippe Pétain or of writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline).
* finally came the period for amnesty and graces (such as Jean-Pierre Esteva, Xavier Vallat, creator of the General Commission for Jewish Affairs, René Bousquet, head of French police)
Other historians have distinguished the purges against intellectuals (Brasillach, Céline, etc.), industrialists, fighters (Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism, LVF etc.) and civil servants (Papon etc.).
Philippe Pétain was charged with treason in July 1945. He was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, but Charles commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. In the police, some collaborators soon resumed official responsibilities. This continuity of the administration was pointed out, in particular concerning the events of the Paris massacre of 1961, executed under the orders of Paris Police Chief Maurice Papon while Charles was head of state. Papon was tried and convicted for crimes against humanity in 1998.
The French members of the Waffen-SS SS Division Charlemagne, ''Charlemagne'' Division who survived the war were regarded as traitors. Some of the more prominent officers were executed, while the rank-and-file were given prison terms. Some of them were given the option of doing time in Indochina War, Indochina (1946–54) with the Légion étrangère, Foreign Legion instead of prison.
Among artists, singer Tino Rossi was detained in Fresnes Prison; according to the newspaper ''Combat (newspaper), Combat'', prison guards asked him for autographs. Pierre Benoît (novelist), Pierre Benoit and Arletty were also detained.
Executions without trials and other forms of "popular justice" were harshly criticised immediately after the war, with circles close to Pétainists advancing the figures of 100,000 and denouncing the "Red Terror", "anarchy", or "blind vengeance". The writer and Jewish internee Robert Aron estimated the popular executions to a number of 40,000 in 1960. This surprised , who estimated the number to be around 10,000, which is also the figure accepted today by mainstream historians. Approximately 9,000 of these 10,000 refer to summary executions in the whole of the country, which occurred during battle.
Some imply that France did too little to deal with collaborators at this stage by selectively pointing out that in absolute value (numbers), there were fewer legal executions in France than in its smaller neighbour Belgium, and fewer internments than in Norway or the Netherlands, but the situation in Belgium was not comparable as it mixed collaboration with elements of a war of secession. The 1940 invasion prompted the Flemish population to generally side with the Germans in the hope of gaining national recognition, and relative to national population, a much higher proportion of Belgians than French thus ended up collaborating with the Germans or volunteering to fight alongside them. The Walloon population, in turn, led massive anti-Flemish retribution after the war, some of which, such as the execution of :nl:Irma Laplasse, Irma Swertvaeger Laplasse, were controversial.
The proportion of collaborators was also higher in Norway, and collaboration occurred on a larger scale in the Netherlands (as in Flanders), based partly on linguistic and cultural commonality with Germany. The internments in Norway and the Netherlands, meanwhile, were Legal purge in Norway after World War II#Process, highly temporary and rather indiscriminate: there was a brief internment peak in these countries since internment was used partly for the purpose of separating collaborationists from others. Norway ended up Legal purge in Norway after World War II#People executed as part of the legal purge, executing only 37 collaborationists.
1980s trials
Some accused war criminals were judged, some for a second time, from the 1980s onwards: Paul Touvier, Klaus Barbie, Maurice Papon, René Bousquet (the head of the French police during the war) and his deputy Jean Leguay
Jean Leguay (29 November 1909 – 2 July 1989) was the second-in-command of the French National Police during the Nazi Occupation of France. He was complicit in the 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris and their deportation from France to Nazi extermi ...
. Bousquet and Leguay were both convicted for their responsibilities in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942. Among others, Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld spent part of their postwar effort trying to bring them before the courts. Some collaborationists then joined the Organisation de l'armée secrète, OAS terrorist movement during the Algerian War (1954–62). Jacques de Bernonville escaped to Quebec, then Brazil. Jacques Ploncard d'Assac became counsellor to the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.
In 1993, former Vichy official René Bousquet
René Bousquet (; 11 May 1909 – 8 June 1993) was a high-ranking French political appointee who served as secretary general to the Vichy French police from May 1942 to 31 December 1943. For personal heroism, he had become a protégé of promin ...
was assassinated while he awaited prosecution in Paris following a 1991 inculpation for crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
. He had been prosecuted but partially acquitted and immediately amnestied in 1949. In 1994, former Vichy official Paul Touvier (1915–1996) was convicted of crimes against humanity. Maurice Papon was likewise convicted in 1998 but was released three years later due to ill health and died in 2007.
Historiographical debates and "Vichy Syndrome"
Until Jacques Chirac's presidency, the official point of view of the French government was that the Vichy regime was an illegal government distinct from the French Republic, established by traitors under foreign influence. Indeed, Vichy France eschewed the formal name of France ("French Republic") and styled itself the "French State", replacing the Republican motto of ''Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité'' (liberty, equality, fraternity) inherited from the 1789 French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, with the motto ''Travail, Famille, Patrie'' (work, family, homeland).
While the criminal behaviour of Vichy France was consistently acknowledged, this point of view denied any responsibility of the state of France by alleging that acts committed between 1940 and 1944 were unconstitutional acts devoid of legitimacy. The main proponent of this view was Charles de Gaulle himself, who insisted, as did other historians afterwards, on the unclear conditions of the June 1940 vote granting full powers to Pétain, which was refused by the minority of Vichy 80. In particular, coercive measures used by Pierre Laval have been denounced by those historians who hold that the vote did not, therefore, have constitutional legality (#Conditions of armistice, See subsection: ''Conditions of armistice and 10 July 1940 vote of full powers''). In later years, 's position was reiterated by President Francois Mitterrand. "I will not apologize in the name of France. The Republic had nothing to do with this. I do not believe France is responsible", he said in September 1994.
The first president to accept responsibility for the arrest and deportation of Jews from France was Chirac. In a 16 July 1995 speech, he recognised the responsibility of "the French State" for seconding the "criminal folly of the occupying country", in particular the French police, headed by René Bousquet (charged in 1990 with crimes against humanity), which assisted the Nazis in the enactment of the so-called "Final Solution". The July 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup is a tragic example of how the French police did the Germans' work and even went further than was demanded by military orders by sending children to Drancy internment camp, the last stop before the extermination camps.
President Emmanuel Macron's statement on 16 July 2017 was even more specific, stating clearly that the Vichy regime was certainly the French State during the war and played a role in the Holocaust. (Earlier that year, speeches made by Marine Le Pen had made headlines by claiming that the Vichy government was "not France".) Macron made this remark in discussing the Vel' d'Hiver roundup of Jews: "It is convenient to see the Vichy regime as born of nothingness, returned to nothingness. Yes, it is convenient, but it is false".
As the historian Henry Rousso has put it in ''The Vichy Syndrome'' (1987), Vichy and the state collaboration of France remains a "past that doesn't pass away".
Historiographical debates are still passionate and oppose different views on the nature and legitimacy of Vichy's collaborationism with Germany in the implementation of the Holocaust. Three main periods have been distinguished in the historiography of Vichy. Firstly, the Gaullist period aimed at national reconciliation and unity under the figure of Charles , who conceived himself above political parties and divisions. Then, the 1960s had Marcel Ophüls's film ''The Sorrow and the Pity'' (1971). Finally, in the 1990s, the trial of Maurice Papon, a civil servant in Bordeaux who had been in charge of the "Jewish Questions" during the war and was convicted after a very long trial (1981–1998) for crimes against humanity. Papon's trial concerned more than individual itinerary but also the French administration's collective responsibility in the deportation of the Jews. Furthermore, his career after the war led him to be the prefect of the Paris police during the Algerian War (1954–1962), the treasurer of the Gaullist Union des Démocrates pour la République from 1968 to 1971 and finally the budget minister under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Prime Minister Raymond Barre from 1978 to 1981, which was symptomatic of the quick rehabilitation of former collaborationists after the war. Critics contend that his itinerary was shared by others although few had such public roles and demonstrates France's collective amnesia, but others point out that the perception of the war and of the state collaboration has evolved during those years. Papon's career was considered more scandalous as he had been responsible, during his function as prefect of police of Paris, for the 1961 Paris massacre of Algerians during the war and was forced to resign from this position after the 1965 "disappearance" in Paris of the Moroccan anticolonialist leader Mehdi Ben Barka. Papon was convicted in 1998 for complicity with the Nazis in crimes against humanity.
It is certain that the Vichy government and many of its top administration collaborated in the implementation of the Holocaust, the exact level of such co-operation is still debated. Compared with the Jewish communities established in other countries invaded by Germany, French Jews suffered proportionately lighter losses (see Jewish death toll section above), but in 1942, repression and deportations started to strike French Jews, not just foreign Jews.[ Former Vichy officials later claimed that they did as much as they could to minimise the impact of the Nazi policies, but mainstream French historians contend that the Vichy regime went beyond the Nazis' expectations.
The regional newspaper ''Nice Matin'' revealed on 28 February 2007 that in more than 1,000 condominium properties on the Côte d'Azur, rules dating to Vichy were still "in force" or at least existed on paper. One of the rules, for example, stated:
]The contractors shall make the following statements: they are of French nationality, are not Jewish, nor married to Jewish in the sense of the laws and ordinances in force [under Vichy, ''ed. note'']
The president of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France-Côte d'Azur, a Jewish association group, issued a strong condemnation labelling it "the utmost horror" when one of the inhabitants of such a condominium qualified that as an "anachronism" with "no consequences". Jewish inhabitants were able and willing to live in the buildings, and to explain that, the ''Nice Matin'' reporter surmised that some tenants may have not read the condominium contracts in detail, and others have deemed the rules obsolete.[''Le Figaro'', 15 October 2007]
A vendre appartement pour Français non juif
A reason for the latter is that any racially discriminatory condominium or other local rule that may have existed "on paper", Vichy-era or otherwise, was by the French Constitution of 27 October 1946, which established the French Fourth Republic and was upheld by French Fifth Republic (1958), and was inapplicable under French antidiscrimination law. Thus, even if the tenants or co-owners had signed or otherwise agreed to these rules after 1946, any such agreement would be null and void () under French law, as well as the rules. Rewriting or eliminating the obsolete rules would have had to be done at the occupants' expense, including notary fees of €900-7000 per building.
"Sword and shield" argument
There was an illusory belief from the end of the war and through the 1960s that almost everybody was in the Resistance, or at least supported it, and collaborators were a minority. Two additional popular beliefs went along with this, that of the "sword and shield", as well as the idea that to whatever extent there were harsh measures implemented by Vichy, it was because it was under the boot of the Germans and not by choice.
During the war, the theory of the "sword and shield" () was raised as a defense of Vichy, whereby Pétain was seen as the "shield" protecting France and the French people within the country, while was seen as the "sword", engaging in combat from abroad. By this theory, Pétain was merely containing the German enemy to prevent an even worse outcome for France, while awaiting liberation through military action from without led by . This theory that Petain and de Gaulle were tacitly working together, first developed by Robert Aron in his 1954 ''Histoire de Vichy'', was later deconstructed by historian Henry Rousso in his 1987 ''Syndrome de Vichy''.
A lot of French people believed at the time of the occupation that this tacit agreement existed, according to Aron. Resistance member Gilbert Renault, alias Colonel Rémy, who founded the first resistance network in occupied France had great respect for Pétain, and felt that France could fight on two fronts, either with Pétain internally, or with from abroad, and he was not alone among resistance members who supported and sincerely admired Pétain.
Today, the few remaining Vichy supporters continue to maintain the official argument advanced by Pétain and Laval: state collaboration was supposed to protect the French civilian population from the Occupation's hardships. At his trial, Pétain proclaimed that Charles had represented the "sword" of France, and Pétain had been the "shield" protecting France.
Purification
Munholland reports a widespread consensus among historians regarding the authoritarian character of the Vichy regime and its
Foreign Jews
Although that claim is rejected by the rest of the French population and by the state itself, another myth remains more widespread, the alleged "protection" by Vichy of French Jews by "accepting" to collaborate in the deportation and ultimately in the extermination of foreign Jews.
That argument has been rejected by several historians who specialised in the subject, such as the widely recognised American historian Robert Paxton
Robert Owen Paxton (born June 15, 1932) is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. He is Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History ...
and the historian of the French police Maurice Rajsfus. Both were called on as experts during the Papon trial in the 1990s.
Paxton declared before the court on 31 October 1997, "Vichy took initiatives.... The armistice allowed it a breathing space".[''L'Humanité'', 1 November 1997]
Robert Paxton donne une accablante leçon d'histoire
(Robert Paxton gives a damning lesson of history) an
Robert Paxton: History Lesson. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
Vichy then decided on its own within the homeland, to implement the "National Revolution" ("Révolution nationale"). After naming the alleged causes of the defeat ("democracy, parliamentarism, cosmopolitanism, the left wing, foreigners, Jews,..."), Vichy had put in place by 3 October 1940 the first Vichy anti-Jewish legislation, anti-Jewish legislation. From then on, Jewish people were considered "second-zone citizens."
Internationally, France "believed the war to be finished". Thus, by July 1940, Vichy eagerly negotiated with the German authorities in an attempt to gain a place for France in the Third Reich's "New Order", but "Hitler never forgot the 1918 defeat. He always said no." Vichy's ambition was doomed from the start.
"Antisemitism was a constant theme", recalled Paxton. At first, it even opposed German plans. "At this time the Nazis had not yet decided to exterminate the Jews, but to expel them. Their idea was not to make of France an antisemitic country. On the contrary, they wanted to send there the Jews that they expelled" from the Reich.
The historic change came in 1941–1942, with the pending German defeat on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front. The war then became "total", and in August 1941, Hitler decided on the "global extermination of all European Jews". The new policy was officially formulated during the January 1942 Wannsee Conference and had been implemented in all occupied countries in Europe by spring 1942. France, praising itself for having remained an independent state, as opposed to other occupied countries, "decided to cooperate. This is the second Vichy". The first train of deportees left Drancy on 27 March 1942, for Poland, the first in a long series.
Paxton recalled "The Nazis needed the French administration.... They always complained about the lack of staff", something which Maurice Rajsfus has also underlined. Although the Paxton recognised during the trial that the "civil behavior of certain individuals" had permitted many Jews to escape deportation, he stated:
The French state, itself, participated in the policy of extermination of the Jews.... How can one claim the reverse when such technical and administrative resources were made available to them?
Pointing to the French police's registering of Jews and to Laval's decision, which had been taken completely autonomously in August 1942, to deport children along with their parents, Paxton added:
Contrary to preconceived ideas, Vichy did not sacrifice foreign Jews in the hope of protecting French Jews. At the hierarchy summit, it knew, from the start, that the deportation of French Jews was unavoidable.
Paxton then referred to the case of Italy, where deportation of Jewish people had started only after the German occupation. Italy surrendered to the Allies in mid-1943 but then was invaded by Germany. Fighting continued there until 1944. In particular, in Nice, "Italians had protected the Jews. And the French authorities complained about it to the Germans".
More recent work by the historian Susan Zuccotti finds that in general, the Vichy government facilitated the deportation of foreign Jews, rather than French Jews, until at least 1943:
Vichy officials [had] hoped to deport foreign Jews throughout France in order to ease pressure on native Jews. Pierre Laval himself expressed the official Vichy position.... In the early months of 1943, the terror [Adam] Munz and [Alfred] Feldman described in German-occupied France was still experienced by foreign Jews like themselves. It is difficult to know exactly how many French Jews were arrested, usually for specific or alleged offences, but on 21 January 1943, Helmut Knochen informed Eichmann in Berlin that there were 2,159 French citizens among the 3,811 prisoners at Drancy. Many had been at Drancy for several months. They had not been deported because, until January 1943, there had usually been enough foreigners and their children to fill the forty-three trains that had carried about 41,591 people to the east.... By January 1943, foreign Jews were increasingly aware of the danger and difficult to find. Nazi pressure for the arrest of French Jews and the deportation of those already at Drancy increased accordingly. Thus, when Knochen reported that there were 2,159 French citizens among the 3,811 prisoners at Drancy on 21 January 1943, he also asked Eichmann for permission to deport them. There had been no convoy from Drancy in December and January, and [SS Lieutenant Heinz] Heinz Röthke, Röthke was pressuring Knochen to resume them. Röthke also wanted to empty Drancy in order to refill it. Despite Vichy officials' past disapproval and Eichmann's own prior discouragement of such a step, permission for the deportation of the French Jews at Drancy, except for those in Anti-miscegenation laws#Nazi Germany, mixed marriages, was granted from Berlin on 25 January.
Deportations from France did not start until summer 1942, several months after mass deportation from other countries had started.
Whatever the Vichy government's initial or subsequent intent, the death rate was 15% for French Jews, slightly over half of that of non-citizen Jews residing in France. More Jews lived in France at the end of the Vichy regime than approximately ten years earlier.
Notable figures
* René Bousquet
René Bousquet (; 11 May 1909 – 8 June 1993) was a high-ranking French political appointee who served as secretary general to the Vichy French police from May 1942 to 31 December 1943. For personal heroism, he had become a protégé of promin ...
, head of the French police.
* François Darlan
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan (7 August 1881 – 24 December 1942) was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the ''École navale'' in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service d ...
, Prime Minister (1941–1942).
* Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Commissioner for Jewish Affairs.
* Marcel Déat, founder of the ''Rassemblement national populaire'' (RNP) in 1941. Joined the government in the last months of the Occupation.
* Pierre-Étienne Flandin, Prime Minister (1940–1941).
* Philippe Henriot, State Secretary of Information and Propaganda.
* Gaston Henry-Haye, Vichy ambassador to the United States of America.
* Charles Huntziger
Charles Huntziger (; 25 June 1880 – 11 November 1941) was a French Army general during World War I and World War II.
He was born at Lesneven ( Finistère), in Brittany of a family which settled in the region, after the Prussian invasion of ...
, general and Minister of Defense.
* Pierre Laval
Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. During the Third Republic, he served as Prime Minister of France from 27 January 1931 to 20 February 1932 and 7 June 1935 to 24 January 1936. He again occ ...
, Prime Minister (1940, 1942–1944).
* Jean Leguay
Jean Leguay (29 November 1909 – 2 July 1989) was the second-in-command of the French National Police during the Nazi Occupation of France. He was complicit in the 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris and their deportation from France to Nazi extermi ...
, delegate of Bousquet in the "free zone", charged with crimes against humanity for his role in the July 1942 ''Vel' d'Hiv Roundup''.
* François Mitterrand, later President of the French Republic (1981–1995)
* Maurice Papon, head of the Jewish Questions Service in the prefecture of Bordeaux. Condemned for crimes against humanity in 1998.
* Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of Worl ...
, Head of State.
* Pierre Pucheu, Minister of the Interior.
* Simon Sabiani, head of the ''Parti Populaire Français'' in Marseille.
* Paul Touvier, condemned in 1995 for crimes against humanity for his role as head of the ''Milice'' in Lyon.
* Xavier Vallat, Commissioner General for Jewish Questions.
* Maxime Weygand
Maxime Weygand (; 21 January 1867 – 28 January 1965) was a French military commander in World War I and World War II.
Born in Belgium, Weygand was raised in France and educated at the Saint-Cyr military academy in Paris. After graduating in 1 ...
, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and Minister of Defense.
Non-Vichy collaborationists
* Pierre Bonny, also known as Pierre Bony.
* Robert Brasillach, writer, executed for collaboration after the war.
* Marcel Bucard, founder of the far-right ''Mouvement franciste'' and ''Legion des volontaires francais contre le bolchevisme'' (LVF).
* Louis-Ferdinand Céline, writer.
* Eugène Deloncle, co-founder of the right-wing terrorist group ''La Cagoule'' in 1935 and fascist ''Mouvement social révolutionnaire'' in 1940.
* Jacques Doriot, founder of the ''Parti Populaire Français'' (PPF) and member of the LVF.
* Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, writer.
* Henri Lafont
* Étienne Leandri, wore the Gestapo uniform during the war and participated in the creation of the Gaullist ''Service d'Action Civique'' (SAC) in the 1960s.
* Robert Le Vigan, actor.
* Charles Maurras, writer and founder of royalist movement ''Action Française''.
* Lucien Rebatet, writer.
* Pierre Taittinger, chairman of the municipal council of Paris 1943–1944.
See also
* Camp of Septfonds
* Cadix, Allied intelligence center in Uzès
* Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II
* German occupation of France during World War II
* Government of Vichy France
* Italian occupation of France during World War II
* List of French possessions and colonies
* Military history of France during World War II
* Oradour-sur-Glane
* ''Ordre Nouveau (1940s), Ordre Nouveau''
* Organisation Todt
* Amy Elizabeth Thorpe
* Western Front (Frankreich) Area (Luftflotte 3, France)
* World War II in the Basque Country
Notes
References
Bibliography
English
* Nicholas Atkin, Atkin, Nicholas, ''Pétain'', (Longman, 1997)
* Azema, Jean-Pierre. ''From Munich to Liberation 1938–1944'' (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1985)
* Azema, Jean-Pierre, ed. ''Collaboration and Resistance: Images of Life in Vichy France 1940–1944'' (2000) 220pp; photographs
* Boyd, Douglas. ''Voices from the Dark Years: The Truth About Occupied France 1940–1945'' (The History Press, 2015)
* Burrin, Philippe. ''France Under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise'' (1998)
* Carmen Callil ''Bad Faith. A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland and Vichy France''. New York: Knopf. 2006. ; Biography of Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, the Commissioner for Jewish Affairs
* Campbell, Caroline. "Gender and Politics in Interwar and Vichy France." ''Contemporary European History'' 27.3 (2018): 482–499
online
* Christofferson, Thomas R., and Michael S. Christofferson. ''France during World War II: From Defeat to Liberation'' (2nd ed. 2006) 206pp; brief introductio
online edition
* Davies, Peter. ''France and the Second World War: Resistance, Occupation and Liberation'' (Introduction to History) (2000) 128p
excerpt and text search
* Diamond, Hanna. ''Women and the Second World War in France, 1939–1948: Choices and Constraints'' (1999)
* Diamond, Hanna, and Simon Kitson, eds. ''Vichy, Resistance, Liberation: New Perspectives on Wartime France'' (2005
online edition
online review
* Fogg, Shannon Lee. ''The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables, and Strangers'' (2009), 226p
excerpt and text search
* Gildea, Robert. ''Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation'' (2004
excerpt and text search
* Charles Glass, Glass, Charles, ''Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation'' (2009
excerpt and text search
* Gordon, B. ''Historical Dictionary of World War Two France: The Occupation, Vichy and the Resistance, 1938–1946'' (Westport, Conn., 1998)
* Halls, W. D. ''Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France'' (1995
online edition
*
*
*
* Kedward, H. R. ''Occupied France: Collaboration and Resistance'' (Oxford, 1985), short survey
* Simon Kitson, Kitson, Simon, ''The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France'', (University of Chicago Press, 2008). .
* Kocher, Adam, Adria K. Lawrence and Nuno P. Monteiro. 2018. "Nationalism, Collaboration, and Resistance: France under Nazi Occupation." ''International Security'' 43(2): 117–150.
* Kooreman, Megan. ''The Expectation of Justice: France, 1944–1946''. (Duke University Press. 1999)
*
* Lackerstein, Debbie. ''National Regeneration in Vichy France: Ideas and Policies, 1930–1944'' (2013
excerpt and text search
* William L. Langer, Langer, William, ''Our Vichy gamble'', (1947); U.S. policy 1940–42
* Larkin, Maurice. ''France since the Popular Front: Government and People 1936–1996'' (Oxford U P 1997).
* Lemmes, Fabian. "Collaboration in wartime France, 1940–1944", ''European Review of History'' (2008), 15#2 pp 157–177
*
* Manow, Philip. "Workers, farmers and Catholicism: A history of political class coalitions and the south-European welfare state regime". ''Journal of European Social Policy'' (2015) 25#1 pp: 32–49.
* Marrus, Michael R. and Robert Paxton. ''Vichy France and the Jews''. (Stanford University Press, 1995).
online 1981 edition
* Martin Mauthner. ''Otto Abetz and His Paris Acolytes – French Writers Who Flirted with Fascism, 1930–1945''. (Sussex Academic Press, 2016).
* Melton, George E. ''Darlan: Admiral and Statesman of France, 1881–1942''. (Praeger, 1998). .
*
* Nord, Philip. ''France's New Deal: From the Thirties to the Postwar Era'' (Princeton U.P., 2010)
*
* Paxton, Robert O. '' Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944'' (2nd ed. 2001
excerpt and text search
influential survey
*
* Pollard, Miranda. ''Reign of virtue: mobilising gender in Vichy France'' (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
*
* Smith, Colin. ''England's Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy, 1940–1942'', London, Weidenfeld, 2009.
* Sutherland, Jonathan, and Diane Canwell. ''Vichy Air Force at War: The French Air Force that Fought the Allies in World War II'' (Pen & Sword Aviation, 2011)
* John F. Sweets, Sweets, John F., ''Choices in Vichy France: The French Under Nazi Occupation'' (New York, 1986
excerpt and text search
focus on city of Clermont-Ferrand
* Martin Thomas (historian), Thomas, Martin, ''The French Empire at War, 1940–45'', Manchester University Press, 1998, paperback 2007.
* Vinen, Richard. ''The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation'' (2007)
* Richard H. Weisberg, Weisberg, Richard H. ''Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France''. New York University Press. 1998.
Historiography
* Conan, Eric, and Henry Rousso. ''Vichy: An ever-present past'' (UP of New England, 1998)
* Fishman, Sarah, et al. ''France at War: Vichy and the Historians'' (2000
online edition
* Golsan, Richard J. ''Vichy's Afterlife: History & Counterhistory in Postwar France'' (2000)
* Gordon, Bertram M. "The 'Vichy Syndrome' problem in history", ''French Historical Studies'' (1995) 19#2 pp 495–518, on the denial of the realities of Vich
in JSTOR
* Munholland, Kim. "Wartime France: Remembering Vichy", ''French Historical Studies'' (1994) 18#3 pp. 801–82
in JSTOR
* Poznanski, Renée. "Rescue of the Jews and the Resistance in France: From History to Historiography", ''French Politics, Culture and Society'' (2012) 30#2 pp 8–32.
* Henry Rousso, Rousso, Henry. ''The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944''. (2nd ed. 2006).
* Singer, Barnett. "The Changing Image of Vichy in France", ''Contemporary Review'' Summer 200
online edition
French
* Henri Amouroux, ''La grande histoire des Français sous l'Occupation'', 8 volumes, Laffont, 1976
*
* Jean-Pierre Azéma & François Bedarida, ''Vichy et les Français'', Paris, Fayard, 1996.
** ''Le régime de Vichy et les Français'' (dir. Jean-Pierre Azéma & François Bédarida, Institut d'histoire du temps présent), Fayard, 1992,
*
*
* Michèle Cointet. ''Dictionnaire historique de la France sous l'Occupation'' (2nd ed. 2000) 732pp
* Michèle Cointet. ''L'Eglise sous Vichy. 1940–1945. La repentance en question.'', Perrin, Paris, 1998.
*
* Eric Conan et Henry Rousso. ''Vichy, un passé qui ne passe pas'', Fayard, Paris, 1994,
* Yves Maxime Danan, ''La vie politique à Alger, de 1940 à 1944'', L.G.D.J., Paris 1963.
*
*
* André Kaspi. ''Les Juifs pendant l'Occupation'', Seuil, Paris, 1991,
* Serge Klarsfeld. ''Vichy-Auschwitz. Le rôle de Vichy dans la solution finale de la question juive en France. 1943–1944.'', Fayard, Paris, 1985,
* Launay, Jacques de. ''Le Dossier de Vichy'', in series, ''Collection Archives'', [Éditions] Julliard, [Paris], 1967. ''N.B''.: A documentary history.
* Herbert R. Lottman. ''Pétain.'' Seuil, 1984,
*
* Jacques Sabille. "Les Juifs de Tunisie sous Vichy et l'Occupation". Paris: Edition du CDJC, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, 1954
*
German
* Eberhard Jäckel: ''Frankreich in Hitlers Europa: die deutsche Frankreichpolitik im 2. Weltkrieg'', Stuttgart 1966.
* Martin Jungius: ''Der verwaltete Raub. Die "Arisierung" der Wirtschaft in Frankreich 1940–1944''. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2008, Beiheft der Francia Nr. 67, hrsg. von Deutschen Historischen Institut Paris.
* : ''Staaten als Täter. Ministerialbürokratie und 'Judenpolitik' in NS-Deutschland und Vichy-Frankreich. Ein Vergleich. Preface by Horst Möller and Georges-Henri Soutou'' München, Oldenbourg, 2010 (Studien zur Zeitgeschichte; 80). . (Comparative study of anti-Jewish policy implemented by the government in Nazi-Germany, by German occupational forces in France and by the semi-autonomic French government in Vichy)
*
Films
* Marcel Ophüls, ''The Sorrow and the Pity'' (1969).
* Claude Chabrol, ''The Eye of Vichy'' (1993).
External links
* Simon Kitson'
Vichy web-page
* [http://www.hist-geo.com/Carte/France/1940-1942/Armistice-22-Juin-1940-11.png Map of the "free" and "occupied" French zones]
''National Geographic'' coverage of the armistice
''Time'', 22 July 1940
Vica Nazi Propaganda Comics – Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
Pro-Nazi comics produced in Vichy France
The Holocaust in France
, at Yad Vashem website
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, But Not for All: France and the "Alien" Jews, 1933–1942
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