Following the Allied liberation of France with Operation Overlord, Pétain and his ministers were taken to Germany by the German forces where they established a government in exile at Sigmaringen. Evoking the French police’s registering of the Jews, as well as Laval’s decision, taken in August 1942 in all independence, 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. Alexis Carrel had previously published in 1935 the best-selling book titled L'Homme, cet inconnu (Man, This Unknown). 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 the same political persuasion judged that it was preferable to have an authoritarian, Catholic government similar to that of Francisco Franco's Spain, albeit under Germany's yoke, than have a Republican government. Composition du gouvernement au 25 février 1941, « Par la conjonction des événements précipitant une concentration entre les mains d’un seul des pouvoirs présidentiel et gouvernemental comme le cas de figure faisant du dernier président du Conseil de la République également le premier chef du nouvel État français, la personne de Pétain se retrouve tout à la fois investie de nouvelles fonctions exécutives sans avoir été dépossédée de ses anciennes attributions gouvernementales. The dubious conditions of this vote thus explain why a majority of French historians refuse to consider Vichy as a complete continuity of the French state, notwithstanding the fact that although Pétain could claim for himself legality (and a dubious legality), de Gaulle, as the Gaullist myth would later make clear, incarnated the real legitimacy. Detainees were also forced to work on the Transsaharien railroad. “French Jews vs. Foreign Jews”: Myth or Reality? L'historien apporte un nouvel éclairage sur le personnage très contreversé de l'amiral Darlan, assassiné en 1942. Paris remained the official capital, to which Pétain always intended to return the government when this became possible. As soon as the “French state” was proclaimed by Pétain, the internment camps already opened by the Third Republic were put to a new use, before ultimately inserting themselves as necessary transit camps for the implementation of the Holocaust and the extermination of all “undesirables,” including the Roma people who refer to the extermination of Gypsies as Porrajmos. Jean-Pierre Esteva, Xavier Vallat, creator of the General Commission for Jewish Affairs, René Bousquet, head of French police, etc.). US General Mark W. Clark of the combined Allied command made Admiral Darlan sign on 22 November 1942 a treaty putting “North Africa to the disposition of the Americans” and making of France “a vassal country. Marchal Pétain 15 mai 1941 et de lAmiral Darlan, vice président du Conseil. Le gouvernement soviétique s’y était replié, en octobre 1941. In addition to restricting Jews’ access to professions in which their “influence” was supposedly too important (most notably the media), the Statute introduced a numerus clausus for all the liberal professions. The United States granted Vichy full diplomatic recognition, sending Admiral William D. Leahy to France as American ambassador. Early life Youth and family. And the French authorities complained about it to the Germans.”, Download our mobile app for on-the-go access to the Jewish Virtual Library, Conditions of Armistice & Vote of Full Powers, French Collaborationnistes & Collaborators, Tensions With Britain in Syria, Madagascar, Historiographical Debates & Responsibility of France: “Vichy Syndrome”. Contre le gouvernement de Vichy, "conservateur-réactionnaire" La position du PCF vis-à-vis de Laval, Flandin et Darlan; La défense de "l'école laïque menacée" L'opposition aux "Chantiers de jeunesse" du gouvernement de Vichy; L'URSS, "un paradis radieux", les communistes, "des sauveurs et … Il succède au gouvernement Pierre-Étienne Flandin (2) le 10 février 1941 et se termine le 18 avril 1942, lors du rappel de Pierre Laval. Charles Huntziger, jenderal dan Menteri Pertahanan. ), industrials, fighters (LVF, etc.) Leur agressivite et leur programme) qui preconisait une industrie et une agriculture modernisees, ainsi que la planification, les opp sbrent a d'autres factionsJ comme celle des traditionalistes. He feared that France would continue to fight from North Africa, and he wanted to ensure that the French navy was taken out of the war. Singer Tino Rossi was detained in Fresnes prison, where, according to Combat newspaper, prison guards asked him for autographs. Paris: Fayard 1989. Finally, after Pétain's proclamation of the “French state” and the beginning of the implementation of the “Révolution nationale” (“National Revolution”), the French administration opened up many concentration camps, to the point that historian Maurice Rajsfus wrote: “The quick opening of new camps was creative of employements, and the Gendarmerie never ceased to hire during this period.”. Olivier Faron, Les Enfants du deuil: orphelins et pupilles de la nation de la première guerre mondiale (1914–1941) (Paris, 2001), cited in Smith et … Paul Reynaud, who had not officially resigned as Prime Minister, was arrested in September 1940 by the Vichy government and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1941 before the opening of the Riom Trial. Beside these eugenics activities aimed at classifying the population and at “improving” its “health”, the foundation was also at the origine of the October 11, 1946 law instauring occupational medicine, enacted by the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) after the Liberation. Pétain's government took measures against the so-called “undesirables”: © 1998 - 2021 American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, the impossibility for the Parliament to delegate its constitutional powers without controlling its use a, the 1884 constitutional amendment making it impossible to put into question the “republican form” of the regime, The USSR maintained, until 30 June 1941, full diplomatic relations with the Vichy Regime, broken after Vichy supported. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous.”, “(t)he conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to insure order. Along with the March 15, 1944 Charter of the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR), which gathered all Resistant movements under one unified political body, these reforms were a main instrument in the instauration of post-war dirigisme, a kind of semi-planned economy which made of France the modern social democracy it is now. However, this nationalist argument which pretends to legimitate the French state collaboration has been rejected by several historians who are specialists of the subject, among them US historian Robert Paxton, who is widely recognized and whose foreign origin permits a more distant and objective judgment on the matter, and historian of the French police Maurice Rajsfus. This is the second Vichy.” The first train of deportees left Drancy on 27 March 1942 for Poland--the first in a long series. Giraud arrived in Algiers on November 10, and agreed to subordinate himself to Darlan as the French African army commander. 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. As Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben has pointed out, this racial profiling was an important step in the organization of the police raids against the French Jewish community. According to the Dannecker report, “this filing system subdivised itself into files alphabetically classed, Jewish with French nationality and foreign Jewish having files of different colours, and the files were also classed, according to profession, nationality and street” (of residency). De Gaulle had not even been informed of the landing in North Africa. Those who had engaged in the black market were also stigmatized as “war profiteers” (profiteurs de guerre), and popularly called “BOF” (Beurre Oeuf Fromage, or Butter Eggs Cheese, because of the products sold at outrageous prices during the Occupation). The Roosevelt administration was notably cool, if not hostile, to de Gaulle, especially resenting his refusal to cooperate in the Normandy invasion of 6 June 1944 (Operation Overlord). In reality, this was probably a pretextual understanding. Historians in particular have debated the circumstances of the vote of full powers to Pétain on July 10, 1940. Vichy France was established after France surrendered to Germany on June 22, 1940, and took its name from the government's administrative center in Vichy, southeast of Paris. 9. helmikuuta 1941 ministerineuvoston varapresidentti François Darlan: 9. helmikuuta 1941 18. huhtikuuta 1942 ministerineuvoston varapresidentti Pierre Laval: 18. huhtikuuta 1942 19. elokuuta 1944 hallituksen johtaja Australia maintained, until the end of the War, full diplomatic relations with the Vichy Regime and entered also into full diplomatic relations with the Free French. Background of the Vichy Regime The Fall of France France's Armistice With Hitler Conditions of Armistice & Vote of Full Powers Collaboration with Nazi Germany Vichy's Racial Policies & Collaboration Eugenics Policies The Statute on Jews The July 1942 Vel'd'hiv Round-Up August 1942 & January 1943 Raids French Collaborationnistes & Collaborators Relationships With the Allied Powers Creation of Free French Forces Tensions With Britain in Syria, Madagascar German Invasion Noivember 1942 Independence of the S.O.L. The US first tried to support General Maxime Weygand, general delegate of Vichy for Africa until December 1941. Papon’s carreer was considered even 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 – which, as with Vichy’s collaboration, France still has difficulties in recognizing its responsibility – and was forced to resign from this position after the “disappearance”, in Paris in 1965, of the Moroccan anti-colonialist leader Mehdi Ben Barka. The Third Republic had opened various concentration camps, first used during World War I to intern enemy aliens. ), including 1.500 death sentences (Joseph Darnand, head of the Milice, and Pierre Laval, head of the French state, were executed after trial on October 4, 1945, Pierre Pucheu was inculpated at the end of 1943, Robert Brasillach, executed on February 6, 1945, etc.) After Darlan signed an armistice with the Allies and took power in North Africa, Germany violated the 1940 armistice and invaded Vichy France on 10 November 1942 (operation code-named Case Anton), triggering the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon. In total, the Parliament was composed of 846 members, 544 deputies and 302 senators. Starting in the summer of 1943, the GMR would be the most effective force used against the Resistants in the maquis. In the sole department of the Seine, encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs, nearly 150,000 persons, unaware of the up-coming danger and assisted by the French police, presented themselves to the police offices, in accordance with the military order. Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned over the decision and, on his recommendation, President Albert Lebrun appointed the 84-year-old Pétain to replace him on 16 June. This was not enough security for. See J. Marlowe, Perfidious Albion: The Origins of Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant (London: Elek Books, 1971). The Armistice with France (Second Compiègne) agreement was signed on 22 June. Pierre Pucheu, Menteri Interior. French civil servants in Bordeaux, such as Maurice Papon, or Nantes were under the authority of French ministers in Vichy. Many officials, including the Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, wanted to move the government to French territories in North Africa, and continue the war with the French naval fleet and the resources of the French empire. While officially neutral in the war, Vichy actively collaborated with the Nazis, including, to some degree, with their racial policies. The historical turn took place in 1941-1942, with the defeat on the Eastern Front. I, Paris 1947. The next flashpoint between Britain and Vichy came in June 1941 when a revolt in Iraq had to be put down by British forces. Although Vichy's “Armistice Army” was disbanded, thus diminishing Vichy's independence, the abolition of the line of demarcation made civil administration easier. The Constitutional Acts of 11 and 12 July 1940 granted to Pétain all powers (legislative, judicial, administrative, executive — and diplomatic) and the title of “head of the French state” (chef de l'Etat français), as well as the right to nominate his successor. By its own, this action represented more than a quarter of the 42,000 French Jews sent to Auschwitz in 1942, of which only 811 would come back after the end of the war. Less than two weeks after the armistice, Britain had fired upon forces of its former ally. Entre Hitler et Mussolini, les relations ont largement été étudiées. 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. US General Mark W. Clark of the combined Allied command made Admiral Darlan sign on 22 November 1942 a treaty putting “North Africa to the disposition of the Americans” and making of France “a vassal country. During the Vel'd'hiv raid of July 1942, Laval ordered the deportation of the children, against explicit German orders. Collaborationists may have influenced the Vichy government's policies, but ultra-collaborationists comprised the majority of the government only until 1944. After the liberation, France was swept for a short period with a wave of executions of Collaborationists. In 1941, Nobel Prize winner Alexis Carrel, who had been an early proponent of eugenics and euthanasia and was a member of Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party (PPF), went on to advocate for the creation of the Fondation Française pour l’Etude des Problèmes Humains (French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems), using connections to the Pétain cabinet (specifically, French industrial physicians André Gros and Jacques Ménétrier). Including the Jews who died in concentration camps in France, this makes for a total figure of 90,000 Jewish deaths (nearly a quarter of the total Jewish population before the war). The Statute first made mandatory the yellow badges, a reminiscence of old Christian anti-semitism. Collaborationists were brought to the Vélodrome d'hiver, Fresnes prison or the Drancy internment camp. The remaining two-fifths of the country would be governed by the French government with the capital at Vichy under Pétain. “Antisemitism was a constant theme,” recalled Robert Paxton. On July 1, 1940, the Parliament and the government gathered themselves in Vichy, a city in the center of France, which was used as a provisional capital. When the Phoney War started with France's declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, these camps were used to intern enemy aliens. 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 (1946-54) with the Foreign Legion instead of prison. This institution would be renamed after the war National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) and exists to this day. ), which consisted mostly of French supporters of the Nazis, of which Pétain fully approved. Among the 150,000 French Jews, about 30,000, generally native from Central Europe, had been naturalized French during the 1930s. Nevertheless, on 16 July 1995, president Jacques Chirac, in a speech, recognized the responsibility of the French State for seconding the “criminal folly of the occupying country,” in particular the help of the French police, headed by René Bousquet, which assisted the Germans in the enactment of the so-called “Final Solution.” The July 1942 rafle du Vel'd'hiv is a tragic example of how the French police did the Nazi work, going even further than what military orders demanded (by sending children to Drancy internment camp, last stop before the extermination camps). Under the armistice, France had been allowed to retain the French Navy, the Marine Nationale, under strict conditions. Police inspector André Tulard participated to the logistics concerning the attribution of these badges. Even though he was now in the Allied camp, Darlan maintained the repressive Vichy system in North Africa, including concentration camps in southern Algeria and racist laws. In 1943, the Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL) collaborationist militia, headed by Joseph Darnand, became independent and was transformed into the “Milice française” (French Militia). 357 deputies voted in favor of Pétain, and 57 refused to grant him full powers. The foundation, which became after the war the INED demographics institute, employed 300 researchers from the summer of 1942 to the end of the autun of 1944. Some historians claim that the difficulties of communication across the demarcation line between the two zones, and the tendency of the Germans to exercise arbitrary power in the occupied zone, made it difficult for Vichy to assert its authority there.