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Published: November 21st 2006
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I felt it was about time I dug into Vichy's not so pleasant past. Most people outside France would not think of Vichy as Napoleon's second home, nor would they no luch about it's magnificent spas and celestins. No, Vichy has a darker reputation, one which is never visible today in the town. In fact, despite living in the shadow of the hotel de ville, the center of these events, Vichy France has left no mark on its town. I have complied information below from Wikipedia about the Régime de Vichy.
Vichy France, or the Vichy regime was the de facto French government of 1940-1944 during the Nazi Germany occupation of World War II. It began when the National Assembly gave full power to Marshal Philippe Pétain. Now known in French as the Régime de Vichy or Vichy, during its existence it referred to itself as L'État Français (The French State).
Vichy France was established after France surrendered to Germany in June 22, 1940, and took its name from the government's administrative centre in Vichy, southeast of Paris. While officially neutral in the war, Vichy France in many respects actively collaborated with the Nazis.
The civil jurisdiction of the Vichy
government extended over the whole of Metropolitan France, except for Alsace-Lorraine, which was placed under German administration (though not formally annexed). French civil servants in Bordeaux or Nantes were under the authority of French ministers in Vichy.
The Vichy government's claim to be the de jure (by law) French government was challenged by the Free French Forces of Charles de Gaulle, based first in London and later in Algiers, and French governments ever since have held that the Vichy regime was an illegal government run by traitors. At the time, however, the Vichy regime was acknowledged as the official government of France by the United States and other countries, including Canada, which was at war with Germany. Even the United Kingdom maintained unofficial contacts with Vichy for some time, until it became apparent that the Vichy Prime Minister Pierre Laval intended full collaboration with the Germans.
Within Vichy France, a low-intensity civil war pitted the French Resistance—drawn from the Communist and Republican elements of society—against the reactionary elements who desired a fascist or similar regime in the mould of Francisco Franco's Spain. This civil war can be seen as the continuation of a fracture that divided French society since the
19th century or even the French Revolution. The composition of the Vichy cabinet, and its policies, were mixed. Many Vichy officials such as Pétain were reactionaries who considered France's unfortunate fate as a kind of divine punishment for its Republican character and the actions of its left-wing governments of the 1930s. Others, like Joseph Darnand, were strong anti-Semites and overt Nazi sympathisers.
On the other hand, technocrats such as Jean Bichelonne or engineers from the Groupe X-Crise used their position to push various reforms that had been postponed during the Third Republic. Many of these (for example, the foundation of the statistics office, which would become INSEE after the war, or Alexis Carrel's "French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems" — Alexis Carrel supported eugenics — which became the National Institute of Demographic Studies - INED -, led by Alfred Sauvy, after the war) were retained and reinforced under France's post-war dirigisme.
In order to enforce the régime's will, some paramilitary organizations with a fascist leaning were created. A notable example was the "Légion Française des Combattants et des volontaires de la Révolution Nationale" (French Legion of Fighters and Volunteers of the National Revolution) and the "Légion Française des
Combattants" (L.F.C.).
As soon as it had been established, Pétain's government took measures against his real or supposed opponents. It also created racist laws of Hitlerian inspiration against Jews even more quickly than Hitler had done after his ascent to power in Germany. These racist laws were more severe than the 1938 Italian Fascist ones, and they were made even stricter in July 1941.
Furthermore, foreign Jews staying in France were handed over to Germany. In total, the Vichy government helped in the deportation of 76,000 Jews to German extermination camps; only 2,500 survived the war. (On 16 July 1995, president Jacques Chirac officially recognized the active participation of French police forces to the 16 July 1942 raid.)
A number of French individuals found fascist philosophies attractive and were advocating them even before the founding of the Vichy regime. Their far-right organizations, such as the Cagoule, had greatly contributed to the destabilization of the French Third Republic in the 1930s, particularly when the left-wing Popular Front had been in power. After Nazi control was established, some of these sympathisers actively assisted the Vichy regime.
In 1945, many members of the Vichy government were arrested and charged with high treason
and other crimes. Trials ensued and some, including Laval and Darnand, were executed. Pétain was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment due to his achievements during World War I. Others fled or went into hiding, such as Jacques de Bernonville who went to Québec, Canada, while some were not prosecuted for their crimes until much later, or not at all. In 1993, former Vichy official René Bousquet was murdered while he awaited prosecution in Paris following a 1989 complaint for crimes against humanity; he had been prosecuted after the war, but had been acquitted in 1949. In 1994 former Vichy official Paul Touvier was convicted of crimes against humanity.
The official point of view of the French government is that the Vichy regime was an illegal government distinct from the French Republic, established by traitors under foreign influence. Indeed, Vichy France eschewed the formal name of France ("French Republic") and styled itself the "French State". While the criminal behavior of Vichy France is acknowledged, and some former Vichy officials prosecuted, this point of view denies any responsibility of the French Republic. On 16 July 1995, president Jacques Chirac, recognized the responsibility of the French State for seconding the "criminal folly of the occupying country".
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