Vichy France
Vichy France[Vel' d'Hiv Roundup|] is the common name of the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Evacuated from Paris to Vichy in the unoccupied "Free Zone" in the southern part of metropolitan France which included French Algeria, it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as the French colonial empire.
From 1940 to 1942, while the Vichy regime was the nominal government of all of France except for Alsace-Lorraine, the Germans and Italians militarily occupied northern and south-eastern France. While Paris remained the de jure capital of France, the government chose to relocate to the town of Vichy, to the south in the zone libre, which thus became the de facto capital of the French State. Following the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942, southern France was also militarily occupied by Germany and Italy to protect the Mediterranean coastline. Petain's government remained in Vichy as the nominal government of France, albeit one that collaborated with Nazi Germany from November 1942 onwards. The government at Vichy remained there until late 1944, when it lost its de facto authority due to the Allied invasion of France and the government was compelled to relocate to the Sigmaringen enclave in Germany, where it continued to exist on paper until the end of hostilities in Europe.
After being appointed Premier by President Albert Lebrun, Marshal Pétain's cabinet agreed to end the war and signed an Armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940. On 10 July, the Third Republic was effectively dissolved as Pétain was granted full powers by the National Assembly. At Vichy, Pétain established an authoritarian government that reversed many liberal policies and began tight supervision of the economy, calling for "National Regeneration", with central planning a key feature. Labour unions came under tight government control. Conservative Catholics became prominent and clerical input in schools resumed. Paris lost its avant-garde status in European art and culture. The media were tightly controlled and promoted anti-Semitism, and, after June 1941, anti-Bolshevism.
The French State maintained nominal sovereignty over the whole of French territory but had effective full sovereignty only in the unoccupied southern zone libre. It had limited and only civil authority in the northern zones under military occupation. The occupation was to be a provisional state of affairs, pending the conclusion of the war, which at the time appeared imminent. The occupation also presented certain advantages, such as keeping the French Navy and French colonial empire under French control, and avoiding full occupation of the country by Germany, thus maintaining a degree of French independence and neutrality. Despite heavy pressure, the French government at Vichy never joined the Axis alliance and even remained formally at war with Germany.
Germany kept two million French soldiers prisoner, carrying out forced labour. They were hostages 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 and political refugees. Much of the French public initially supported the government, despite its undemocratic nature and its difficult position with respect to the Germans, often seeing it as necessary to maintain a degree of French autonomy and territorial integrity. In November 1942, the zone libre was also occupied by Axis forces, leading to the disbandment of the remaining army and the sinking of France's remaining fleet and ending any semblance of independence, with Germany now closely supervising all French officials.
Most of the overseas French colonies were originally under Vichy control, though a few rallied to Charles de Gaulle's Allied-oriented Free France. Following the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, Vichy progressively lost control of the colonies to Free France. Public opinion gradually turned against the French government and the occupying German forces over time, when it became clear that Germany was losing the war, and living conditions in France became increasingly difficult. A resistance movement, working largely in concert with de Gaulle's movement outside the country, increased in strength over the course of the occupation. Following the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and the liberation of France later that year, the Free French Provisional government of the French Republic was installed as the new national government, led by de Gaulle. Under a "national unanimity" cabinet uniting the many factions of the French Resistance, the GPRF re-established a provisional French Republic, thus apparently restoring continuity with the Third Republic. Most of the legal French government's leaders at Vichy fled or were subject to show trials by the GPRF, and a number were quickly executed for "treason" in a series of purges. Thousands of collaborators were summarily executed by local communists and the Resistance in so-called "savage purges".
The last of the French state exiles were captured in the Sigmaringen enclave by de Gaulle's French 1st Armoured Division in April 1945. Pétain, who had voluntarily made his way back to France via Switzerland, was also put on trial for treason by the new Provisional government, and received a death sentence, but this was commuted to life imprisonment by de Gaulle. Only four senior Vichy officials were tried for crimes against humanity, although many more had participated in the deportation of Jews for internment in Nazi concentration camps, abuses of prisoners, and severe acts against members of the Resistance.
Overview
In 1940, Marshal Pétain was known as a First World War hero, the victor of the battle of Verdun. As the last premier of the Third Republic, being a reactionary by inclination, he 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, Vichy's official neutrality notwithstanding. The Vichy government cooperated with the Nazis' racial policies.Terminology
After the National Assembly under the Third Republic voted to give full powers to Philippe Pétain on 10 July 1940, the name République Française disappeared from all official documents. From that point on, the regime was referred to officially as the État Français. 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 France south of the Line of Demarcation, as established by the Armistice of 22 June 1940, and the overseas French territories, such as French North Africa, which was "an integral part of Vichy", and where all antisemitic Vichy's laws were also implemented. This was called the Unbesetztes Gebiet by the Germans, and known as the Zone libre in France, or less formally as the "southern zone" especially after Operation Anton, the invasion of the Zone libre by German forces in November 1942. Other contemporary colloquial terms for the Zone libre 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, French Algeria, the French protectorate in Morocco, 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 Reich never annexed the region. The Reich government at the time was not interested in attempting to enforce piecemeal annexations in the West – it operated under the assumption that Germany's new western border would be determined in peace negotiations that would be attended by all of the Western Allies, thus producing a frontier that would be recognised by all of the major powers. Since Adolf Hitler's overall territorial ambitions were not limited to recovering Alsace-Lorraine, and since Britain was never brought to terms, these peace negotiations never took place.The Nazis had some intention of annexing a large swath of northeastern France and replacing that region's inhabitants with German settlers, and initially forbade French refugees from returning to this region. These restrictions, which were never thoroughly enforced, were basically abandoned following the invasion of the Soviet Union, which had the effect of turning the Nazis' territorial ambitions almost exclusively to the East. German troops guarding the boundary line of the northeastern Zone interdite were withdrawn on the night of 17–18 December 1941 although 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 and pointedly the customs posts separating France from Germany were placed back where they had been between 1871–1918. 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, the head of French police nominated by Vichy, exercised his power in Paris through his second-in-command, Jean Leguay, who coordinated raids with the Nazis. German laws took precedence over French ones 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, the Axis launched Operation Anton, 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. Pétain was constitutionally appointed the Premier by President Lebrun on 16 June 1940, and he was legally within his rights to sign the armistice with Germany; yet, 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, former Premier 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 thus could not take part in the vote. However, during the war the Vichy government was internationally recognized, notably by the United States and several other major Allied powers. Diplomatic relations with Great Britain had been severed since 8 July 1940, after the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir.Ideology
The Vichy regime sought an anti-modern counter-revolution. The traditionalist right in France, with strength in the aristocracy and among Catholics, had never accepted the republican traditions of the French Revolution. It demanded a return to traditional lines of culture and religion and embraced authoritarianism, while dismissing democracy. The Communist element, strongest in labour unions, turned against Vichy in June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Vichy was intensely anti-Communist and generally pro-German; American historian Stanley G. Payne found that it was "distinctly rightist and authoritarian but never fascist". Political scientist Robert Paxton analysed the entire range of Vichy supporters, from reactionaries to moderate liberal modernizers, and concluded that genuine fascist elements had but minor roles in most sectors. French historian Olivier Wieviorka rejects 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."program, 1942
The Vichy government tried to assert its legitimacy by symbolically connecting itself with the Gallo-Roman period of France's history, and celebrated the Gaulish chieftain Vercingetorix as the "founder" of the nation. It was asserted that just as the defeat of the Gauls in the 52 BC Battle of Alesia 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 arranged so as to resemble the fasces, symbol of the Italian Fascists.
To advance his message, Marshal Pétain frequently spoke on French radio. In his radio speeches, Pétain always used the personal pronoun je, portrayed himself as a Christ-like figure sacrificing himself for France while also 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, Pétain needed a radical break with the Republic, and during his radio speeches the entire French Third Republic era was always painted in the blackest of colours, a time of la décadence when the French people were alleged to have suffered moral degeneration and decline.
Summarising Pétain's speeches, the British historian Christopher Flood wrote that Pétain blamed la décadence on "political and economic liberalism, with its divisive, individualistic and hedonistic values—locked in sterile rivalry with its antithetical outgrowths, Socialism and Communism". Pétain argued that rescuing the French people from la décadence required a period of authoritarian government which would restore national unity and the traditionalist morality which Pétain claimed the French had forgotten. Despite his highly negative view of the Third Republic, Pétain argued that la France profonde 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, 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 replaced Marianne as the national symbol of France under Vichy as her status as one of France's best-loved heroines gave her widespread appeal while at the same time the image of Joan as devoutly Catholic and patriotic 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 Miracle de Jeanne 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 Miracle de Jeanne 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. In part, Vichy's virulent Anglophobia was due to its leaders' personal dislike of the British, as Marshal Pétain, Pierre Laval and Admiral François Darlan 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"; he 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, an event that Pétain claimed would solve all of the economic problems caused by the Great Depression. Beyond that, in order to justify both the armistice with Germany and the Révolution nationale, 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 Révolution nationale together with Pétain's policy of la France seule were meant to "regenerate" France from la décadence that was said to have destroyed French society and brought about the defeat of 1940. Such a harsh critique of French society could only generate 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 lodges first 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", a nation that was the complete antithesis of everything good in France, the blood-soaked "Perfidious Albion" 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 in part for that reason. The chief themes of Vichy Anglophobia were British "selfishness" in using and abandoning France after instigating wars, British "treachery" and British plans to take over French colonies. 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 titled Faut-il réduire l'Angleterre en esclavage? ; the question in the title was merely rhetorical. Additionally, Vichy mixed Anglophobia with racism and antisemitism 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
France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September. After the eight-month Phoney War, 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, wanted to move the government to French territories in North Africa, and continue the war with the French Navy and colonial resources. Others, particularly the Vice-Premier Philippe Pétain and the Commander-in-Chief, General Maxime Weygand, insisted that the responsibility of the government was to remain in France and share the misfortune of its people. The latter view called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.While this debate continued, the government was forced to relocate several times, to avoid capture by advancing German forces, finally reaching Bordeaux. Communications were poor and thousands of civilian refugees clogged the roads. In these 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, should Germany set forth dishonourable or excessively harsh terms, France would retain the option to continue to fight. General Charles Huntziger, who headed the French armistice delegation, was told to break off negotiations if the Germans demanded the occupation of all metropolitan France, the French fleet, or any of the French overseas territories. The Germans did not.
meeting Hitler in October 1940
Prime Minister Paul Reynaud favoured continuing the war; however, he was soon outvoted by those who advocated an armistice. Facing an untenable situation, Reynaud resigned and, on his recommendation, President Albert Lebrun appointed the 84-year-old Pétain as his replacement on 16 June 1940. The Armistice with France agreement 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 he wanted to ensure 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 while also sending a message to Britain that they were alone, with France appearing to switch sides and the United States remaining neutral. However, Nazi espionage against France after its defeat intensified greatly, particularly in southern France.
Conditions of armistice and 10 July 1940 vote of full powers
The armistice divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones: northern and western France, including the entire Atlantic coast, was occupied by Germany, and the remaining two-fifths of the country was under the control of the French government with the capital at Vichy under Pétain. Ostensibly, the French government administered the entire territory.Prisoners
Germany took two million French soldiers as prisoners of war and sent them to camps in Germany. About one-third had been released on various terms by 1944. Of the remainder, the officers and NCOs were kept in camps but were exempt from forced labour. The privates were first sent to "Stalag" camps for processing and were then put out 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.Army of the Armistice
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, paid at the artificial rate of twenty Francs to the Reichsmark. This 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 Army of the Armistice —stationed in the unoccupied zone, and for the military provision of the French colonial empire overseas. The function of these forces was to keep internal order and to defend French territories from 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 Gendarmerie 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 there was a shortage of volunteers. As a result, 30,000 men of the class of 1939 were retained to fill the quota. At the beginning of 1942 these conscripts were released, but there were still not enough men. This shortage remained until the 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 capotes 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 this role to the Vichy Milice, a paramilitary force created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy government to combat the Resistance; so that members of the regular army could defect to the 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.
Vichy French colonial forces were reduced in accordance with the terms of the Armistice; still, in the Mediterranean area alone, Vichy had nearly 150,000 men under arms. There were about 55,000 in French Morocco, 50,000 in Algeria, and almost 40,000 in the Army of the Levant, in Lebanon and Syria. Colonial forces were allowed to keep some armoured vehicles, though these were mostly "vintage" World War I tanks.
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.Vichy government
On 10 July 1940, the Parliament and the government gathered in the quiet spa town of Vichy, their provisional capital in central France. Pierre Laval and Raphaël Alibert began their campaign to convince the assembled Senators and Deputies to vote full powers to Pétain. They used every means available, promising ministerial posts to some while 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, then aboard the ship Massilia 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.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 in 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 Radicals and Socialists who opposed Laval became known as the Vichy 80. 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 post-war French governments contend 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 its use a posteriori
- The 1884 constitutional amendment making it unconstitutional to put into question the "republican form" of the government
The argument concerning the abrogation of legal procedure is based on the absence and non-voluntary abstention of 176 representatives of the people – the 27 on board the Massilia, and an additional 92 deputies and 57 senators, some of whom were in Vichy, but not present for the vote. In total, the parliament was composed of 846 members, 544 Deputies and 302 Senators. One Senator and 26 Deputies were on the Massilia. One Senator did not vote; 8 Senators and 12 Deputies voluntarily abstained; 57 Senators and 92 Deputies involuntarily abstained. Thus, 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 de Gaulle – the dubious circumstances of the vote explain why a majority of 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 labor, of family and of the homeland. It will be ratified by the nation and applied by the assemblies which it has created.
The Constitutional Acts of 11 and 12 July 1940 granted to Pétain all powers 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, was replaced by Travail, Famille, Patrie ; it was noted at the time that TFP also stood for the criminal punishment of "travaux forcés à perpetuité". 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, his status as a hero of the Third Republic during World War I notwithstanding. 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 "felony of opinion" was re-established, effectively repealing freedom of thought and expression; critics were frequently arrested. Elective bodies were replaced by nominated ones. The "municipalities" and the departmental commissions were thus placed under the authority of the administration and of the prefects. 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, he maintained the Tricolor and other symbols of republican France, and unlike many far rightists, he was not an anti-Dreyfusard. Pétain excluded fascists from office in his government, and by and large his cabinet comprised "February 6 men" or mainstream politicians whose career prospects had been blocked by the triumph of the Front populaire in 1936.
Foreign relations
Vichy France was recognised by most Axis and neutral powers, including the US and the USSR. During the war, Vichy France conducted military actions against armed incursions from Axis and Allied belligerents, an example of armed neutrality. The most important such action was the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon on 27 November 1942, preventing its capture by the Axis. The United States granted Vichy full diplomatic recognition, sending Admiral William D. Leahy to France as American ambassador. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull hoped to use American influence to encourage those elements in the Vichy government opposed to military collaboration with Germany. The Americans also hoped to encourage Vichy to resist German war demands, such as for air bases in French-mandated Syria or to move war supplies through French territories in North Africa. The essential American position was that France should take no action not explicitly required by the Armistice terms that could adversely affect Allied efforts in the war.The US position towards Vichy France and de Gaulle was especially hesitant and inconsistent. President Roosevelt disliked Charles de Gaulle, whom he regarded as an "apprentice dictator". Robert Murphy, Roosevelt's representative in North Africa, started preparing for a landing in North Africa in December 1940. The US first tried to support General Maxime Weygand, general delegate of Vichy for Africa until December 1941. This first choice having failed, they turned to Henri Giraud shortly before the landing in North Africa on 8 November 1942. Finally, after François Darlan's turn towards the Free Forces — Darlan had been president of the Council of Vichy from February 1941 to April 1942 — they played him against de Gaulle.
US General Mark W. Clark of the combined Allied command made Admiral 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 like Germany. After the assassination of Darlan on 24 December 1942, Washington turned again towards Henri 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 Alfred Pose, general director of the Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie.
The Soviet Union maintained full diplomatic relations with the Vichy government until 30 June 1941. These were broken after Vichy expressed support for Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Due to British requests and the sensitivities of its French Canadian population, Canada maintained full diplomatic relations with the Vichy regime until the beginning of November 1942 and Case Anton – the complete occupation of Vichy France by the Nazis.
Britain 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 Marine Nationale, under strict conditions. Vichy pledged that the fleet would never fall into the hands of Germany, but refused to send the fleet beyond Germany's reach by sending it to Britain or to faraway territories of the French empire such as the West Indies. This did not satisfy Winston Churchill, who ordered French ships in British ports to be seized by the Royal Navy. Shortly after the Armistice, Britain conducted the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, killing 1,297 French military personnel, and Vichy severed diplomatic relations with Britain. The French squadron at Alexandria, under Admiral René-Emile Godfroy, was effectively interned until 1943 after an agreement was reached with Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham, commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet. After the Mers el Kebir incident, the United Kingdom recognised Free France as the legitimate government of France.
Switzerland and other neutral states maintained diplomatic relations with the Vichy regime until the liberation of France in 1944 when Philippe 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 outside supplies. After negotiations with Japan, the French allowed the Japanese to set up military bases in Indochina. This 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 important naval victory over the Thais, Japan forced the French to accept Japanese mediation of a peace treaty that 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 coup d'état in French Indochina and took control, establishing their own colony, the Empire of Vietnam, as a double puppet state.Colonial struggle with Free France
To counter the Vichy government, General Charles de Gaulle created the Free French Forces after his Appeal of 18 June 1940 speech. Initially, Winston Churchill was ambivalent about de Gaulle, and Churchill severed diplomatic ties with Vichy only when it became clear that the Vichy government would not join the Allies.India and Oceania
Until 1962, France possessed four small, non-contiguous but politically united colonies across India, the largest being Pondicherry in Southeast India. 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 participated in the Western Desert campaign, although news of the death of French-Indian soldiers caused some disturbances in Pondicherry. The French possessions in Oceania joined the Free French side in 1940, or in one case in 1942. They then 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 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 side. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, American forces identified French Polynesia as an ideal refuelling point between Hawaii and Australia and, with de Gaulle's agreement, organised "Operation Bobcat" sending nine ships with 5000 American soldiers to build a naval refuelling base and airstrip and set up coastal defence guns on Bora Bora. This first experience was valuable in later Seabee efforts in the Pacific, and the Bora Bora base supplied the Allied ships and planes that fought the battle of the Coral Sea. Troops from French Polynesia and New Caledonia formed a Bataillon du Pacifique 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 Bataillon d'infanterie de marine et du Pacifique; fought in the Italian Campaign, distinguishing themselves at the Garigliano during the Battle of Monte Cassino and on to 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. 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. Due to its location on the edge of the Coral Sea and on the flank of Australia, New Caledonia became strategically critical in the effort to combat the 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 Bataillon du Pacifique 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 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. This allowed American forces to build an airbase and seaplane base on Wallis that served the Allied Pacific operations.
Americas
The Free French seized control of Saint Pierre and Miquelon on 25 December 1941. Guadeloupe and Martinique in the French West Indies, as well as French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, did not join the Free French until 1943–1944.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 mandate of Cameroun on 27 August 1940. One colony in French Equatorial Africa, Gabon, had to be occupied by military force between 27 October and 12 November 1940.On 23 September 1940, the Royal Navy and Free French forces under Charles de Gaulle launched Operation Menace, an attempt to seize the strategic, Vichy-held port of Dakar in French West Africa. After attempts to encourage them to join the Allies were rebuffed by the defenders, a sharp fight 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 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.
On 8 November 1940, Free French forces under the command of de Gaulle and Pierre Koenig, along with the assistance of the Royal Navy, invaded Vichy-held Gabon. Gabon, which was the only territory of French Equatorial Africa that was unwilling to join the Free French Forces, fell into allied hands on 12 November 1940, after the capital Libreville was bombed and captured. The final Vichy troops in Gabon surrendered without any military confrontation with the allies at Port-Gentil. The capture of Gabon by the Allies was crucial to ensure that the entire French Equatorial Africa was out of Axis reach.
French Somaliland
The governor of French Somaliland, 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, Wavell decided that Legentilhomme would command the military forces in both Somalilands should war with Italy come. In June, an Italian force was assembled to capture the port city of 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 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 the 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 with 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. German Air Force and 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 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, de Gaulle convinced Churchill to allow his forces to participate, although de Gaulle 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 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, killing 479 Allied forces and wounding 720. Vichy Admiral Darlan initiated co-operation with the Allies. The Allies recognised Darlan's self-nomination as High Commissioner of France for North and West Africa. He ordered Vichy forces there to cease resisting and co-operate with the Allies, and they did so. By the time the Tunisia Campaign was fought, the French forces in North Africa had gone over to the Allied side, joining the Free French Forces.and de Gaulle during the Casablanca Conference in January 1943
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. Darlan was released, and U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower finally accepted his self-nomination as High Commissioner of North Africa and French West Africa, a move that enraged de Gaulle, 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, 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 southern Algeria and racist laws. Detainees were also forced to work on the Trans-Saharan Railway. Jewish goods were "aryanized", and a special Jewish Affairs service was created, directed by Pierre Gazagne. Numerous Jewish children were prohibited from going to school, something which not even Vichy had implemented in metropolitan France. Admiral Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942 in Algiers by the young monarchist Bonnier de La Chapelle. Although de La Chapelle had been a member of the resistance group led by Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie, it is believed he was acting as an individual.
After Admiral Darlan's assassination, Henri Giraud became his de facto successor in French Africa with Allied support. This occurred through a series of consultations between Giraud and de Gaulle. De Gaulle wanted to pursue a political position in France and agreed to have Giraud as commander-in-chief, as the more qualified military person of the two. 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 South Algerian concentration camps. The Cremieux decree, which granted French citizenship to Jews in Algeria and which had been repealed by Vichy, was immediately restored by General de Gaulle.
Giraud took part in the Casablanca conference, with Roosevelt, Churchill, and de Gaulle, in January 1943. The Allies discussed their general strategy for the war, and recognised joint leadership of North Africa by Giraud and de Gaulle. Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle then became co-presidents of the Comité français de la Libération Nationale, which unified the Free French Forces and territories controlled by them and had been founded at the end of 1943. Democratic rule for the European population was restored in French Algeria, and the Communists and Jews liberated from the concentration camps.
At the end of April 1945 Pierre Gazagne, 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 party, the Algerian People's Party. 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 qualified by some historians as the "real beginning of the Algerian War".
Collaboration with Nazi Germany
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. State collaboration was sealed by the Montoire 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 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 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-Semites and overt Nazi sympathizers. A number of these joined the units of the Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme fighting on the Eastern Front, later becoming the SS Charlemagne Division.
On the other hand, 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 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, 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 National Institute of Demographic Studies 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, who created the groupes mobiles de réserve, 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, 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 Army to form the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, 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": Jews, métèques, Freemasons, Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and left-wing activists. Inspired by Charles Maurras's conception of the "Anti-France", Vichy persecuted these supposed enemies.In July 1940, Vichy set up a special commission charged with reviewing naturalisations granted since the 1927 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. A Vichy law of 4 October 1940 authorised internments of foreign Jews on the sole basis of a prefectoral order, and the first raids took place in May 1941. Vichy imposed no restrictions on black people in the Unoccupied Zone; the regime even had a mulatto 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 fall of Catalonia, in the first months of 1939, during the Spanish Civil War, to receive the Republican refugees, including Brigadists from all nations, fleeing the Francoists. After Édouard Daladier's government took the decision to outlaw the French Communist Party following the signing of the German–Soviet non-aggression 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 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 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 and pacifists, as well as French fascists who supported Italy and Germany. Finally, after Pétain's proclamation of the "French State" and the beginning of the implementation of the "Révolution nationale", 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 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. 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 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 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 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" and as with the colonial troops, used by the Germans as manpower. The Statute on Jews excluded them from the civil administration.
Vichy also enacted racial laws in its territories in North Africa. "The history of the Holocaust in France's three North African colonies 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.
Eugenics policies
In 1941, Nobel Prize winner Alexis Carrel, an early proponent of eugenics and euthanasia, and a member of Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party, advocated for the creation of the Fondation Française pour l'Étude des Problèmes Humains, 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". 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 and "life hygiene". Carrel's institute also conceived the "scholar booklet", which could be used to record students' grades in 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 after the Liberation.
The Foundation initiated studies on demographics, nutrition, and housing, as well as the first polls. 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 was given a budget of fifty million francs."
Alexis Carrel had previously published in 1935 the best-selling book L'Homme, cet inconnu. 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 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 "Entretiens de Pontigny". 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.
Statute on Jews
A Nazi ordinance dated 21 September 1940 forced Jews of the "occupied zone" to declare themselves as such at a police station or 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 Communist Party. 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 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 ". 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.On 3 October 1940, the Vichy government voluntarily promulgated the first Statute on Jews, which created a special underclass of French Jewish citizens, and enforced, for the first time in France, racial segregation. The October 1940 Statute excluded Jews from the administration, the armed forces, entertainment, arts, media, and certain professions, such as teaching, law, and medicine. A Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs 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 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, 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 Winter Velodrome in unhygienic conditions. They were led to Drancy internment camp 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 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 succeeded in sending 2,000 Marseillese people in the death trains, leading to the extermination camps. The operation also encompassed the expulsion of an entire neighbourhood in the 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. 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, 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. Paxton's numbers imply that 14,000 Jews died in French concentration camps, but the systematic census of Jewish deportees from France 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.Proportionally, either number makes for a lower death toll than in some other countries. 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.
Government responsibility
For decades, the French government argued that the French Republic had been dismantled when Philippe Pétain instituted a new French State during the war and that the Republic had been re-established 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 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 , 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 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
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."
Military
Portions of the French military fell into Vichy control:General Charles Noguès served as commander-in-chief of Vichy French Forces.
Vichy French Navy were under the command of Admiral François Darlan with naval garrison in Toulon.
Vichy French Air Force was led by General Jean Romatet with involvement in actions in North Africa.
''Collaborationnistes''
in 1974, and after him, other historians such as Robert Paxton 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 of these are Parti Populaire Français leader Jacques Doriot, writer Robert Brasillach or Marcel Déat. A principal motivation and ideological foundation among collaborationnistes was anticommunism. Collaborationnisme should be distinguished from collaboration. Collaboration refers to those of the French who for whatever reason collaborated with the Germans whereas collaborationism refers to those, primarily from the fascist right, who embraced the goal of a German victory as their own.Organizations such as La Cagoule opposed the Third Republic, particularly when the left-wing 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. A notable example was the "Légion Française des Combattants" , including at first only former combatants, but quickly adding "Amis de la Légion" and cadets of the Légion, who had never seen battle, but who supported Pétain's régime. The name was then quickly changed to "Légion Française des Combattants et des volontaires de la Révolution Nationale". Joseph Darnand created a "Service d'Ordre Légionnaire", which consisted mostly of French supporters of the Nazis, of which Pétain fully approved.
Social and economic history
Vichy authorities were strongly opposed to "modern" social trends and tried through "national regeneration" to restore behaviour more in line with traditional Catholicism. Philip Manow argues 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 a key feature.Labor 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 says 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 large businesses. The General Committee for the Organization of Commerce was a national program to modernise and professionalise small business.In 1940 the government took direct control of all production, which was synchronised with the demands of the Germans. 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. The government had never before 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 was closely based on Vichy plans. Thus both teams of wartime and early postwar planners repudiated prewar laissez-faire practices and embraced the cause of drastic economic overhaul and a planned economy.
Forced labour
Nazi Germany kept French POWs as forced labourers throughout the war. They added compulsory 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 constituted fifteen percent 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 unpleasantness of poor housing, inadequate heating, limited food, and poor medical care, all compounded by harsh Nazi discipline. They 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 twenty percent 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, twenty percent of the produce, and two percent 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, which meant that 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. These 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 one thousand thirteen or fewer calories a day, supplemented by home gardens and, especially, black market purchases.
Women
The two million French soldiers held as POWs 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 Révolution Nationale 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. It used propaganda, women's organisations, and legislation to promote maternity, patriotic duty, and female submission to marriage, home, and children's education. The falling birthrate appeared to be a grave problem to Vichy. It 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 that had begun in the 1930s were continued, and became a vital lifeline for many families; it was a monthly cash bonus for having more children. In 1942 the birth rate started to rise, and 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 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 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 de Gaulle, despite the poor performance of Vichy forces in North Africa—Admiral François Darlan had landed in Algiers the day before Operation Torch. Algiers was headquarters of the Vichy French XIX 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 de Gaulle, as the French leader in North Africa. De Gaulle had not even been informed of the landing in North Africa. 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 and the departure of the Vichy leaders, the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union finally recognised the Provisional Government of the French Republic headed by de Gaulle as the legitimate government of France on 23 October 1944. Before that, the first return of democracy to Metropolitan France since 1940 had occurred with the declaration of the Free Republic of Vercors on 3 July 1944, at the behest of the Free French government—but that act of 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 collaborationist militia, headed by Joseph Darnand, became independent and was transformed into the "Milice française". Officially directed by Pierre Laval 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 and Maquis.Sigmaringen commission
Following the Liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, Pétain and his ministers were taken to Germany by the German forces. There, Fernand de Brinon established a pseudo-government in exile at Sigmaringen. Pétain refused to participate and the Sigmaringen operation had little or no authority. The offices used the official title French Delegation or the French Government Commission for the Protection of National Interests. Sigmaringen had its own radio station and official press, and hosted the embassies of the Axis powers: Germany, Italy and Japan. 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 French civilian forced labourers.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 quickly the Provisional Government of the French Republic. The first action of that government was to re-establish republican legality throughout metropolitan France.The provisional government considered the Vichy government to have been unconstitutional and all 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 Order of 9 August 1944. Inasmuch as blanket rescission of all acts taken by Vichy was deemed impractical, though, 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", 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. Collaborationists 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". The Provisional Government of the French Republic quickly reestablished order, and brought Collaborationists before the courts. Many convicted Collaborationists were then given amnesty under the Fourth Republic.Four different periods are distinguished by historians:
- the first phase of popular convictions : executions without judgments and shaving of women's heads. Estimations by police prefects made in 1948 and 1952 counted as many as 6,000 executions before the Liberation, and 4,000 afterward.
- the second phase, which began with Charles de Gaulle's 26 and 27 June 1944 purge ordonnances : judgments of Collaborationists by the Commissions d'épuration, who condemned approximately 120,000 persons, including 1,500 death sentences —many of those who survived this phase were later given amnesty.
- the third phase, more lenient towards Collaborationists.
- finally came the period for amnesty and graces
Philippe Pétain was charged with treason in July 1945. He was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, but Charles de Gaulle 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 head of the Parisian police Maurice Papon when Charles de Gaulle was head of state. Papon was tried and convicted for crimes against humanity in 1998.
The French members of the Waffen-SS 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 with the Foreign Legion instead of prison.
Among artists, singer Tino Rossi was detained in Fresnes prison, where, according to Combat newspaper, prison guards asked him for autographs. 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 de Gaulle, 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, 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 Nazis 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, remained controversial.
The proportion of collaborators was also higher in Norway, and collaboration occurred on a larger scale in the Netherlands based partly on linguistic and cultural commonality with Germany. The internments in Norway and Netherlands, meanwhile, were highly temporary and were rather indiscriminate; there was a brief internment peak in these countries as internment was used partly for the purpose of separating Collaborationists from non-Collaborationists. Norway ended up 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 and his deputy Jean Leguay. 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 post-war effort trying to bring them before the courts. A fair number of collaborationists then joined the OAS terrorist movement during the Algerian War. Jacques de Bernonville escaped to Quebec, then Brazil. Jacques Ploncard d'Assac became counsellor to the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal.In 1993, former Vichy official René Bousquet was assassinated while he awaited prosecution in Paris following a 1991 inculpation for crimes against humanity; he had been prosecuted but partially acquitted and immediately amnestied in 1949. In 1994 former Vichy official Paul Touvier was convicted of crimes against humanity. Maurice Papon was likewise convicted in 1998, 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 and styled itself the "French State", replacing the Republican motto of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité inherited from the 1789 French Revolution, with the motto Travail, Famille, Patrie.While the criminal behaviour of Vichy France was consistently acknowledged, this point of view denied any responsibility of the state of France, 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. In later years, de Gaulle's position was reiterated by president 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 Jacques 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, 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 Nazi work, going even further than what military orders demanded.
President Macron's statement on 16 July 2017 was even more specific, stating clearly that the Vichy regime was certainly the French State during WW II, and played a role in the Holocaust. Macron made the following remark when 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's convenient, but it is false."
As historian Henry Rousso has put it in The Vichy Syndrome, Vichy and the state collaboration of France remains a "past that doesn't pass away".
Historiographical debates are still, today, passionate, opposing conflictual 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: first the Gaullist period, which aimed at national reconciliation and unity under the figure of Charles de Gaulle, who conceived himself above political parties and divisions; then the 1960s, with Marcel Ophüls's film The Sorrow and the Pity ; finally the 1990s, with the trial of Maurice Papon, civil servant in Bordeaux in charge of the "Jewish Questions" during the war, who was convicted after a very long trial for crimes against humanity. The trial of Papon did not only concern an individual itinerary, but the French administration's collective responsibility in the deportation of the Jews. Furthermore, his career after the war, which led him to be successively prefect of the Paris police during the Algerian War and then treasurer of the Gaullist Union des Démocrates pour la République party from 1968 to 1971, and finally Budget Minister under president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and prime minister Raymond Barre from 1978 to 1981, was symptomatic of the quick rehabilitation of former collaborationists after the war. Critics contend that this itinerary, shared by others, demonstrates France's collective amnesia, while others point out that the perception of the war and of the state collaboration has evolved during these 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 "disappearance", in Paris in 1965, of the Moroccan anti-colonialist leader Mehdi Ben Barka. Papon was convicted in 1998 as having been complicit with the Nazis in crimes against humanity.
While it is certain that the Vichy government and a large number of its high 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 ; although, starting in 1942, repression and deportations struck French Jews as well as foreign Jews. Former Vichy officials later claimed that they did as much as they could to minimise the impact of the Nazi policies, although mainstream French historians contend that the Vichy regime went beyond the Nazi 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 these rules, for example, stated that:
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
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 this as an "anachronism" with "no consequences". Jewish inhabitants were able and willing to live in the buildings, and to explain this the Nice Matin reporter surmised that some tenants may have not read the condominium contracts in detail, while others deemed the rules obsolete. 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 invalidated by the constitutions of the French Fourth Republic and French Fifth Republic and was inapplicable under French antidiscrimination law. Thus, even if the tenants or coowners had signed or otherwise agreed to these rules after 1946, any such agreement would be null and void under French law, as were the rules. Rewriting or eliminating the obsolete rules would have had to be done at the occupants' expense, including notary fees of 900 to 7000 EUR per building.
"Sword and shield" argument
Today, the few remaining Vichy supporters continue to maintain the official argument advanced by Pétain and Laval: the state collaboration was supposed to protect the French civilian population from the hardships of the Occupation. At his trial Pétain proclaimed that while Charles de Gaulle had represented the "sword" of France, Pétain had been the "shield" which protected France.Purification
Munholland reports a widespread consensus among historians regarding the authoritarian character of the Vichy regime and its:Foreign Jews
Although this claim is rejected by the rest of the French population and by the state itself, another myth remains more widespread than this one. This other myth refers to the alleged "protection" by Vichy of French Jews by "accepting" to collaborate in the deportation – and, ultimately, in the extermination – of foreign Jews.This argument has been rejected by several historians who are specialists of the subject, among them US historian Robert Paxton, who is widely recognised, and historian of the French police Maurice Rajsfus. Both were called on as experts during the Papon trial in the 1990s.
Robert Paxton thus declared, before the court, on 31 October 1997, that "Vichy took initiatives... The armistice allowed it a breathing space." Henceforth, on its own Vichy decided, within the homeland, to implement the "National Revolution". After naming the alleged causes of the defeat, Vichy put in place, by 3 October 1940, the first 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 was eagerly negotiating 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 Robert Paxton. It even, at first, 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. The war then became "total", and in August 1941, Hitler decided on the "global extermination of all European Jews". This new policy was officially formulated during the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, and implemented in all European occupied countries by spring 1942. France, praising itself for having remained an independent state "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.
"The Nazis needed the French administration... They always complained about the lack of staff." recalled Paxton, something which Maurice Rajsfus has also underlined. Although the American historian recognised during the trial that the "civil behavior of certain individuals" had permitted many Jews to escape deportation, he stated that:
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, as well as Laval's decision, 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.
Despite Paxton's assertion about Vichy knowledge "from the start", deportations from France did not start until summer 1942, several months after mass deportation from other countries started.
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 was subsequently invaded by Germany. Fighting continued there through 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 ones, until at least 1943:
Vichy officials 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 Munz and 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 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 mixed marriages, was granted from Berlin on 25 January.
Whatever the Vichy government's intent initially or subsequently, the numerical outcome was that less than 15% of French Jews, vs. nearly twice that proportion of non-citizen Jews residing in France, died. More Jews lived in France at the end of the Vichy regime than had approximately ten years earlier.
Notable figures
- Philippe Pétain, Head of State.
- Pierre Laval, Prime Minister.
- Pierre-Étienne Flandin, Prime Minister.
- François Darlan, Prime Minister.
- Pierre Pucheu, Minister of the Interior.
- Maxime Weygand, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and Minister of Defense.
- Charles Huntziger, general and Minister of Defense.
- René Bousquet, head of the French police.
- Jean Leguay, delegate of Bousquet in the "free zone", charged with crimes against humanity for his role in the July 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup.
- Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Commissioner for Jewish Affairs.
- Philippe Henriot, State Secretary of Information and Propaganda.
- Maurice Papon, head of the Jewish Questions Service in the prefecture of Bordeaux. Condemned for crimes against humanity in 1998.
- 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.
- Marcel Déat, founder of the Rassemblement national populaire in 1941. Joined the government in the last months of the Occupation.
- Gaston Henry-Haye, Vichy ambassador to the United States of America.
- François Mitterrand, later President of the French Republic
Non-Vichy collaborationists
- Marcel Bucard, founder of the far-right Mouvement franciste and Legion des volontaires francais contre le bolchevisme.
- 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 and member of the LVF.
- Étienne Leandri, wore the Gestapo uniform during the war and participated in the creation of the Gaullist Service d'Action Civique in the 1960s.
- Robert Brasillach, writer, executed for collaboration after the war.
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, writer.
- Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, writer.
- Robert Le Vigan, actor.
- Lucien Rebatet, writer.
- Charles Maurras, writer and founder of royalist movement Action Française.
- Pierre Taittinger, chairman of the municipal council of Paris 1943–1944.
- Henri Lafont
- Pierre Bonny, also known as Pierre Bony.
English
- Atkin, Nicholas, Pétain,
- Azema, Jean-Pierre. From Munich to Liberation 1938–1944
- Azema, Jean-Pierre, ed. Collaboration and Resistance: Images of Life in Vichy France 1940–1944 220pp; photographs
- Boyd, Douglas. Voices from the Dark Years: The Truth About Occupied France 1940–1945
- Burrin, Philippe. France Under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise
- 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 : 482-499.
- Christofferson, Thomas R., and Michael S. Christofferson. France during World War II: From Defeat to Liberation 206pp; brief introduction
- Davies, Peter. France and the Second World War: Resistance, Occupation and Liberation 128pp
- Diamond, Hanna. Women and the Second World War in France, 1939–1948: Choices and Constraints
- Diamond, Hanna, and Simon Kitson, eds. Vichy, Resistance, Liberation: New Perspectives on Wartime France ;
- Fogg, Shannon Lee. The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables, and Strangers, 226pp
- Gildea, Robert. Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation
- Glass, Charles, Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation
- Gordon, B. Historical Dictionary of World War Two France: The Occupation, Vichy and the Resistance, 1938–1946
- Halls, W. D. Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France
- Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 ;
- Kedward, H. R. Occupied France: Collaboration and Resistance, short survey
- Kitson, Simon, The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France,..
- Kooreman, Megan. The Expectation of Justice: France, 1944–1946.
- Lackerstein, Debbie. National Regeneration in Vichy France: Ideas and Policies, 1930–1944
- Langer, William, Our Vichy gamble, ; U.S. policy 1940–42
- Larkin, Maurice. France since the Popular Front: Government and People 1936–1996.
- Lemmes, Fabian. "Collaboration in wartime France, 1940–1944", European Review of History, 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 25#1 pp: 32–49.
- Marrus, Michael R. and Robert Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews..
- Martin Mauthner. Otto Abetz and His Paris Acolytes – French Writers Who Flirted with Fascism, 1930–1945..
- Melton, George E. Darlan: Admiral and Statesman of France, 1881–1942...
- Nord, Philip. France's New Deal: From the Thirties to the Postwar Era
- Paxton, Robert O. Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 ; influential survey
- Pollard, Miranda. Reign of virtue: mobilising gender in Vichy France
- 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
- Sweets, John F., Choices in Vichy France: The French Under Nazi Occupation , focus on city of Clermont-Ferrand
- Thomas, Martin, The French Empire at War, 1940–45, Manchester University Press, 1998, paperback 2007.
- Vinen, Richard. The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation
- 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
- Fishman, Sarah, et al. France at War: Vichy and the Historians
- Golsan, Richard J. Vichy's Afterlife: History & Counterhistory in Postwar France
- Gordon, Bertram M. "The 'Vichy Syndrome' problem in history", French Historical Studies 19#2 pp 495–518, on the denial of the realities of Vichy
- Munholland, Kim. "Wartime France: Remembering Vichy", French Historical Studies 18#3 pp. 801–820
- Poznanski, Renée. "Rescue of the Jews and the Resistance in France: From History to Historiography", French Politics, Culture and Society 30#2 pp 8–32.
- Rousso, Henry. The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944..
- Singer, Barnett. "The Changing Image of Vichy in France", Contemporary Review Summer 2009
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, Fayard, 1992,
- Michèle Cointet. Dictionnaire historique de la France sous l'Occupation 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, Julliard, , 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 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.
- :de:Michael Mayer |Michael Mayer 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..
Films
- Marcel Ophüls, The Sorrow and the Pity.
- Claude Chabrol, The Eye of Vichy.