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In July 1942, the French head of the Vichy police [[René Bousquet]] reached an agreement with SS general [[Carl Oberg]], Polizeiführer, on [[Avenue Foch]] in Paris. Bousquet saw it as maintaining the "independance" of the French police and argued in favor of ''répression à la française''. Indeed, the civilian population, particularly foreign Jews, first to be victimized by repression, distrusted the French authorities somewhat less than the [[Gestapo]]. But this independence remained elusive, as it relied on incresed collaboration between the two police forces. Bousquet was in the end removed and replaced by [[Joseph Darnand]], head of the [[Milice]], who completed the Vichy police state.
In July 1942, the French head of the Vichy police [[René Bousquet]] reached an agreement with SS general [[Carl Oberg]], Polizeiführer, on [[Avenue Foch]] in Paris. Bousquet saw it as maintaining the "independance" of the French police and argued in favor of ''répression à la française''. Indeed, the civilian population, particularly foreign Jews, first to be victimized by repression, distrusted the French authorities somewhat less than the [[Gestapo]]. But this independence remained elusive, as it relied on incresed collaboration between the two police forces. Bousquet was in the end removed and replaced by [[Joseph Darnand]], head of the [[Milice]], who completed the Vichy police state.

Pétain replaced Darlan with Laval on 18 April 1942. Darlan remained the designated successor of the head of state and became commander in chief of Vichy French forces. René Bousquet joined the government, becoming secretary-general for the police 2.

On 5 May 1942, the British landed at Diégo-Suarez in Madagascar, and fighting continued until 8 November.

Laval's return to power coïncided with the Germans putting into place a plan tp deport the Jews 3. A German law made wearing the yellow star mandatory in the occupied zone starting 7 June 1942. Laval's predecessor, Darlan, had opposed implementing the measure in the [[zone libre]], highlighting public opinion 3.

=====Timeline=====
*2 July 1942, Bousquet and Oberg signed an agreement to collaborate in police matters.
*On 16 and 17 July 1942, Vichy police organised the Vel' d'Hiv "raffle".
*19 August 1942, Allies launched [[Operation Jubilee]] on the beach at [[Dieppe]] to test German defenses.
*On 3 November 1942, Rommel loses the battle of El-Alamein, stopping the Italian-Germen advance towards the Suez Canal and began the retreat of the Afrikakorps towards Tunisia.
*On 8 November 1942, the Allies launched landings in Algeria and Morocco ([[Operation Torch]]).
*11 November 1942, the Wehrmacht invaded the previously-unoccupied zone sud, and occupied Tunis and Bizerte, without fightint.
*19 November 1942, the ''Armée d'Afrique'' (Army of Africa) again tool up the fight against the Germans in Tunisia, in Medjez el-Bab.
*On 27 November 1942, the French fleet sank its ship in Toulon and the Armistice Army dissolved.
*On 7 December 1942, French West Africa joined the Allies.
*On 24 December 1942, Admiral François Darlan was assassinated in Algiers by a young monarchist, Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle.
*February 1943 - German troops are surrounded at Stalingrad.
*30 January 1943, Laval created the French [[Milice]] (militia).
*March 1943, French Guyana joined the Allies.
*13 May 1943, Axis forces surrender in Tunisia.
*24 May 1943, first Vichy Milice member is killed by the Résistance intérieure française.
*31 mai 1943, Vichy forces pinned in Alexandria joined the Forces navales française d'Afrique, French Naval Forces of Africa.
*15 juillet 1943, French Antilles joined Free France.
*5 October 1943, Corsica became the first region of mainland France liberated by the French Liberation Army (Armée française de la Libération) and the Italian Armed Forces of the Occupation. <!-- Allied occupation of Italy I guess? -->
*January 1 1944, Darnand is named Secretary-General for Maintaining Order.
*6 June 1944, Allies launch [[Operation Overlord]] in Normandy (D Day).
*15 August 1944, Allies land in Provence and move from Normandy towards vers Paris, and the liberation of France accelerates.
*17 August 1944, Pierre Laval, head of government and Minister for Foreign Affairs, holds his last council meeting in Paris. The Germans was nt maintain a "French government" in the hope of stabilizing the front in Eastern France and in case they could reconquer it 9. The same day, in Vichy, Cecil von Renthe-Fink, the German minister-delegate, asks Pétain to travel to the northern zone, but he refused and asked for this instruction to be made in writing. 10.
*August 18, Renthe-Fink asks twice more.
*August 19, at 11:30 AM, Cecil von Renthe-Fink returned to the hôtel du Parc, résidence of Maréchal, accompanied by General von Neubroon, who said he had "formal orders from Berlin" 10. The written instructions were given to Petain: "The government of the Reich orders the transfer of the head of state, even against his will" 10. When the maréchal refused again, the Germans threatened to have the Wehrmacht bomb Vichy. 10. After asking the Swiss ambassador, Walter Stucki, to witness the blackmail to which he was subjected, Pétain surrendered and ended the Laval administration.
*20 August 1944, the Germans take Pétain, against his will 11, from Vichy to the château de Morvillars near Belfort 13,14.


=== Dissolution and transition to Fourth Republic ===
=== Dissolution and transition to Fourth Republic ===

Revision as of 23:29, 8 June 2020


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The Government of Vichy France was the ruling regime or government in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. Of contested legitimacy, it was headquartered in the town of Vichy in occupied France, but it initially took shape in Paris under Maréchal Philippe Petain as the successor to the French Third Republic in June 1940. Pétain spent four years in Vichy and with the rest of the French cabinet fled into exile in Germany in September 1944 following the Allied invasion of France. It operated as a government-in-exile until April 1945, when the city was taken by Free French forces. Pétain was brought back to France, now under control of the Provisional French Republic, and put on trial for treason.

History

Background

France under German occupation
Further information: Vichy France and Phony war
|Situating Vichy in the context of the invasion and the end of the 3rd Republic, transfer of powers to Petain, flight of the govt, establishments of Occupied zone and Zone libre.

After President Albert Lebrun appointed Pétain prime minister on 16 June, the government signed an armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940.

With France fallen to the Germans, the British judged the risk was too high of the French Navy falling into German hands, and in the attack on Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940 sank one battleship and damaged five others, also killing 1,297 French servicemen. Pétain severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom on 8 July.

The next day the National Assembly voted to revise the constitution, and the following day, 10 July, the National Assembly granted absolute power to Pétain, thus ending the French Third Republic.[1]

Pétain established an authoritarian government at Vichy,[2] with central planning a key feature, as well as tight government control. In retaliation for the attack at Mers el Kébir, French aircraft raided Gibraltar on 18 July but did little damage.

Third Republic

Main article: French Third Republic
See also: Appeal of 18 June
Léon Gambetta proclaiming the Republic of France, 4 September 1870.
  • German invasion
  • Open city Paris; government flees
  • section or perhaps summary on last cabinet under Albert Lebrun?

Until the invasion by Nazi Germany in the Second World War, the French Third Republic had been the government of France since the defeat of Napoleon III and the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. It was dissolved by the French Constitutional Law of 1940 which gave Pétain the power to write a new constitution. He interpreted this to mean that the previous constitution, outlined in the French Constitutional Laws of 1875, no longer constrained him.

In the wake of the Battle of France that culminated in the disaster at Dunkirk, the French government relocated to Bordeaux on 10 June 1940 in order to avoid capture. They declared Paris an open city on that day also. On 22 June, France and Germany signed the Second Armistice at Compiègne. The Vichy government led by Pétain replaced the Third Republic and administered the zone libre in the south of France until November 1942, when Germans and Italians occupied the zone under Case Anton following the Allied landings in North Africa under Operation Torch. Germany occupied northern France and the Atlantic coast, and the Italians, a small territory in the southeast.

Transition to the French State

The Hôtel du Parc, home and office of Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval from 1940 to 1944.
See also: German military administration in occupied France during World War II and Armistice Army

At the time of the armistice the French and the Germans both thought Britain would come to terms any day, so only temporary arragements were made. France agreed to its soldiers remaining prisoners of war until hostilities ceased. The terms of the armistice sketch out a "French State" (État français), whose sovereignty and authority in practice were limited to the zone libre, although in theory it administered all of France. The military administration of the occupied zone was in fact a Nazi dictatorship, which annexed the free zone after Case Anton, Germany's response 11 November 1942 to Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North Africa on 8 November 1942.

Pétain administration under Third Republic

Philippe Pétain, official photo, 1941.
Further information: fr:Gouvernement Philippe Pétain

translation of fr:Gouvernement Philippe Pétain The Philippe Pétain administration was the last administration of the French Third Republic, succeeding on 16 June 1940 to Paul Reynaud's cabinet, it formed in the middle of the Battle of France debacle, when the Third Reich invaded France at the beginning of the Second World War. It was led until 10 July 1940 by Philippe Pétain, and favored the armistice, unlike General de Gaulle, who favored fighting on in the Empire Defense Council[3]. It was followed by the fifth administration of Pierre Laval, the first administration of the Vichy France regime.

Formation

Paul Reynaud, who had been the French President of the Council since 22 March 1940, resigned early on the evening of 16 June, and President Albert Lebrun called for Pétain to form a new government.

Pétain recruited Adrien Marquet for Interior and Pierre Laval for Justice. Laval wanted Ftain's offer of Justice. On the advice of François Charles-Roux, the Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs, and withthe support of Maxime Weygand and Lebrun, Pétain did not back down, leading Laval to withdraw, followed by Marquet in solidarity. After the armistice, Raphaël Alibert convinced Pétain of the need to rely on Laval, and the two rejoined the government.[4]

Pétain obtained the participation of the SFIO by bringing back Albert Rivière and André Février [fr] with the agreement of Léon Blum.

Composition

Titel Office holder Party
Président du Conseil Philippe Pétain SE
Vice-Presidents of the Council Camille Chautemps RAD
Pierre Laval (starting 23 June 1940) SE
Ministers of State
Ministers of State Camille Chautemps RAD
Adrien Marquet (starting 23 June 1940) SE
Pierre Laval (starting 23 June 1940) SE
Ministers
Minister for Foreign Affairs Paul Baudoin SE
Minister of Finance and Commerce Yves Bouthillier SE
Minister of War Louis Colson [fr] SE
Ministre of National Defense Maxime Weygand SE
Guardian of the Seals, Minister of Justice Charles Frémicourt [fr] SE
Minister of National Education Albert Rivaud SE
Minister of the Interior Charles Pomaret [fr] USR
Adrien Marquet (starting 27 June 1940) SE
Minister of the Merchant and Military Marine François Darlan SE
Minister of Air Bertrand Pujo [fr] SE
Minister of Public Works and Information Ludovic-Oscar Frossard USR
Albert Chichery RAD
Minister of Transmissions André Février [fr] (starting 23 juin 1940) SFIO
Minister of the Colonies Albert Rivière SFIO
Minister of Labour and Public Health André Février SFIO
Charles Pomaret (starting 27 June 1940) USR
Minister for Veterans and the French Family Jean Ybarnegaray PSF
High Commissioner for French Propaganda Jean Prouvost (starting 19 June 1940) SE
Commissioners-General
Commissioner-General for Resupply Joseph Frédéric Bernard [fr] (starting 18 June 1940) SE
Commissionner-General for National Reconstruction Aimé Doumenc [fr] (starting 26 June 1940) SE
Under-Secretaries of State
Under-Secretary of State to the Office of the Council President Raphaël Alibert SE
Under-Secretary of State for Refugees Robert Schuman PDP

End of administration

Le 10 juillet 1940, l'Assemblée nationale réunie à Vichy vote les pleins pouvoirs au maréchal Pétain. Le Régime de Vichy commence alors.

Further information: fr:Loi constitutionnelle du 10 juillet 1940 and fr:Vote des pleins pouvoirs à Philippe Pétain le 10 juillet 1940

Notes et références

  1. ^ Loi constitutionnelle du 10 juillet 1940 (Constitutional Law of 10 July 1940). "...Fait à Vichy, le 10 juillet 1940 Par le président de la République, Albert Lebrun..."
  2. ^ Brian Jenkins; Chris Millington (2015). France and Fascism: February 1934 and the Dynamics of Political Crisis. Routledge. p. 149. ISBN 1317507258. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  3. ^ The Empire Defense Council was the government in exile of Free France, recognized by Winston Churchill after Pétain was given <! -- pleins pouvoirs constituants --> was given full constitutional power by the French National Assembly though the constitutional legislation of 11 July 1940 (Texte des actes constitutionnels de Vichy, on the web site of the law and economics faculty at Perpignan, mjp.univ-perp.fr, consulted 15 July 2006)
  4. ^ Cointet 2011, p. 38

Bibliography

Petain and the French State

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First Laval administration (1940)

First Vichy government in July 1940.
Further information: fr:Gouvernement Pierre Laval (5)

The fifth government formed by Pierre Laval was the first administration formed by Pétain under the Vichy regime after the vote of 10 July 1940 ceded full constituent[clarification needed] powers to Pétain. The government ended on 13 December 1940 with Laval's dismissal. This administration was not recognized as legitimate by the Empire Defense Council of the government of Free France, which the British Government recognized as the legitimate government of France.

Formation

The government of Philippe Pétain signed the armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940, put an end to the Third Republic on 10 July 1940 by a vote conveying full powers to Pétain and followed up with three Vichy Constitutional Acts [fr] on 11 July. Meanwhile, on 11 July General de Gaulle created the Empire Defense Council, which was recognized by the British Government as the legitimate successor of the Third Republic, which had allied itself with Great Britain in the war against the Nazis.

On 12 July 1940 Pétain named Pierre Laval, second Minister of State of the last government of the Third Republic under Philippe Pétain[1] as vice-president of the Council.[2], while Pétain remained simultaneously head of state and head of government. Constitutional Act #4 made Laval next in the line of succession should something happen to Pétain.[3] On 16 July, Pétain formed the first government of the Vichy régime and kept Pierre Laval on as vice-president of the Council.

Initial composition

  • Head of the French State, President of the Council[4], Philippe Pétain.
  • Vice president of the Council in charge of Information (18 July 1940)[5] and secretary of state for foreign afairs from 28 octobre 1940 (dismissed 13 décembre 1940) : Pierre Laval
  • Keeper of the Seals (Garde des Sceaux) and Minister Secretary of State for Justice (until January 1941): Raphaël Alibert
  • Minister Secretary of State for Finance (until April 1942): Yves Bouthillier
  • Minister Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (until 28 October 1940), then Minister Secretary of State for the President of the Council (28 October 1940–2 January 1941)[6]: Paul Baudouin
  • Secretary of State for Food and Agriculture, then Minister of Agriculture (December 1940-April 1942): Pierre Caziot
  • Minister Secretary of State for Industrial Production and Labour (until February 1941), then Minister of Labour (until April 1942): René Belin
  • Minister Secretary of State for National Defence (dismissed from the Government as of September 1940): General Maxime Weygand (then Delegate General in North Africa and Commander-in-Chief of the French forces in North Africa until November 1941)
  • Secretary of State for War (Army) (discharged from the government as of September 1940: General Louis Colson [fr]
  • Secretary of State for Aviation (dismissed from the government as of September 1940: General Bertrand Pujo [fr]
  • Secretary of State, then Minister of the Navy: Admiral François Darlan
  • Minister Secretary of State for the Interior (dismissed from the government as of September 1940 as a former parliamentarian): Adrien Marquet
  • Minister Secretary of State for Public Education and Fine Arts (dismissed from the government as of September 1940 because he was a former parliamentarian): Émile Mireaux
  • Minister Secretary of State for Family and Youth (dismissed from the government as of September 1940 as a former parliamentarian): Jean Ybarnegaray
  • Minister Secretary of State for Communications (dismissed from the government as of September 1940 as a former parliamentarian): François Piétri
  • Minister Secretary of State for the Colonies (dismissed from the government as of September 1940 as a former parliamentarian): Henry Lémery

Reshuffles

16 July 1940

The following joined on 16 July 1940:

September 1940

The following joined in September 1940, replacing eight dismissed ministers:

18 November 1940

The following were appointed on 18 November 1940:

Flandin regime

Pierre Flandin on the cover of Time (magazine) on 4 February 1935.
Further information: fr:Gouvernement Pierre-Étienne Flandin (2)

The second government of Pierre-Étienne Flandin was the second government of the Vichy regime in France, formed by Philippe Pétain. It succeeded the first Pierre Laval government on 14 December 1940 and ended on 9 February 1941.

Carryovers from Laval

The majority of ministers, secretaries, and delegates were carried over from the Laval government that ended 13 December 1940.

  • Head of the French State, Council President: Philippe Pétain.
  • Guardian of the Seals and Minister-Secretary of the State for Justice (until January 1941): Raphaël Alibert
  • Minister of Finance (until April 1942): Yves Bouthillier
  • Minister-Secretary of the State to the Council President's Office (28 October 1940 to 2 January 1941) and Minister of Information (December 1940 to 2 January 1941): Paul Baudouin
  • Minister of Agriculture (December 1940 to April 1942): Pierre Caziot
  • Minister of Industrial Production and Labour (until February 1941): René Belin
  • Delegate General to North Africa and commander in chef of Vichy forces in North Africa (until November 1941): General Maxime Weygand
  • Minister of the Marine: Admiral François Darlan
  • Minister of the Interior: Marcel Peyrouton
  • Minister of War (September 1940) and Commander in chief of ground forces (until November 1941): General Charles Huntziger
  • Secretary of the State for Aviation: General Jean Bergeret
  • Secretary of the State for Communications (until April 1942): Jean Berthelot [fr]
  • Secretary of the State for the Colonies (until April 1942): Admiral Charles Platon
  • Secretary General for Justice: Georges Dayras [fr]
  • Secretary General for Public Finance: Henri Deroy [fr]
  • Secretary General to the Office of Council President: Jean Fernet [fr]
  • Secretary General for Youth: Georges Lamirand [fr]
  • Secretary General of the Head of State: Auguste Laure [fr]
  • Secretary General for Economic Questions: Olivier Moreau-Néret [fr]
  • Secretary General for Transport and Public Works: Maurice Schwarz
Named 13 December 1940
Named 27 January 1941
  • Keeper of the Seals and Minister Secretary of State for Justice (January 1941 - resigned March 1943): Joseph Barthélemy
Named 30 January 1941

Darlan regime

Admiral François Darlan, in an undated image.
Further information: fr:Gouvernement François Darlan

After two years at the head of the Vichy government, Admiral Darlan was unpopular and had strengthened ties with Vichy forces, in an expanded collaboration with Germany which seemed to him the least bad solution, and had conceded a great deal, turning over the naval bases at Bizerte and Dakar, an air base in Aleppo in Syria, as well as vehicles, artillery and ammunition in North Africa and Tunisia, in addition to arming the Iraqis. In exchange Darlan wanted the Germans to reduce the constraints under the armistice, free French prisoners, and eliminate the ligne de démarcation. This irritated the Germans. On 9 March 1942, Hitler signed a decree giving France a chief of the SS and police leader (HSSPF) tasked with organizing the "Final Solution", following the Wannsee Conference with the French police. The Germans demanded the return of Laval to power, and broke off contact. The Americans intervened on March 30 to prevent another Laval administration.

2nd Laval regime (1942–1944)

Pierre Laval in 1931.
Further information: fr:Gouvernement Pierre Laval (6)
See also: Service d'ordre légionnaire

The sixth administration of Pierre Laval was the fourth and final government formed by the Vichy régime in France by Pétain. It succeeded the administration of François Darlan on 18 April 1942 and ended on 19 August 1944, when Pétain agreed to leave Vichy for Belfort, ending the Vichy régime, although it persisted a few more months in Germany as the Sigmaringen commission.

In July 1942, the French head of the Vichy police René Bousquet reached an agreement with SS general Carl Oberg, Polizeiführer, on Avenue Foch in Paris. Bousquet saw it as maintaining the "independance" of the French police and argued in favor of répression à la française. Indeed, the civilian population, particularly foreign Jews, first to be victimized by repression, distrusted the French authorities somewhat less than the Gestapo. But this independence remained elusive, as it relied on incresed collaboration between the two police forces. Bousquet was in the end removed and replaced by Joseph Darnand, head of the Milice, who completed the Vichy police state.

Pétain replaced Darlan with Laval on 18 April 1942. Darlan remained the designated successor of the head of state and became commander in chief of Vichy French forces. René Bousquet joined the government, becoming secretary-general for the police 2.

On 5 May 1942, the British landed at Diégo-Suarez in Madagascar, and fighting continued until 8 November.

Laval's return to power coïncided with the Germans putting into place a plan tp deport the Jews 3. A German law made wearing the yellow star mandatory in the occupied zone starting 7 June 1942. Laval's predecessor, Darlan, had opposed implementing the measure in the zone libre, highlighting public opinion 3.

Timeline
  • 2 July 1942, Bousquet and Oberg signed an agreement to collaborate in police matters.
  • On 16 and 17 July 1942, Vichy police organised the Vel' d'Hiv "raffle".
  • 19 August 1942, Allies launched Operation Jubilee on the beach at Dieppe to test German defenses.
  • On 3 November 1942, Rommel loses the battle of El-Alamein, stopping the Italian-Germen advance towards the Suez Canal and began the retreat of the Afrikakorps towards Tunisia.
  • On 8 November 1942, the Allies launched landings in Algeria and Morocco (Operation Torch).
  • 11 November 1942, the Wehrmacht invaded the previously-unoccupied zone sud, and occupied Tunis and Bizerte, without fightint.
  • 19 November 1942, the Armée d'Afrique (Army of Africa) again tool up the fight against the Germans in Tunisia, in Medjez el-Bab.
  • On 27 November 1942, the French fleet sank its ship in Toulon and the Armistice Army dissolved.
  • On 7 December 1942, French West Africa joined the Allies.
  • On 24 December 1942, Admiral François Darlan was assassinated in Algiers by a young monarchist, Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle.
  • February 1943 - German troops are surrounded at Stalingrad.
  • 30 January 1943, Laval created the French Milice (militia).
  • March 1943, French Guyana joined the Allies.
  • 13 May 1943, Axis forces surrender in Tunisia.
  • 24 May 1943, first Vichy Milice member is killed by the Résistance intérieure française.
  • 31 mai 1943, Vichy forces pinned in Alexandria joined the Forces navales française d'Afrique, French Naval Forces of Africa.
  • 15 juillet 1943, French Antilles joined Free France.
  • 5 October 1943, Corsica became the first region of mainland France liberated by the French Liberation Army (Armée française de la Libération) and the Italian Armed Forces of the Occupation.
  • January 1 1944, Darnand is named Secretary-General for Maintaining Order.
  • 6 June 1944, Allies launch Operation Overlord in Normandy (D Day).
  • 15 August 1944, Allies land in Provence and move from Normandy towards vers Paris, and the liberation of France accelerates.
  • 17 August 1944, Pierre Laval, head of government and Minister for Foreign Affairs, holds his last council meeting in Paris. The Germans was nt maintain a "French government" in the hope of stabilizing the front in Eastern France and in case they could reconquer it 9. The same day, in Vichy, Cecil von Renthe-Fink, the German minister-delegate, asks Pétain to travel to the northern zone, but he refused and asked for this instruction to be made in writing. 10.
  • August 18, Renthe-Fink asks twice more.
  • August 19, at 11:30 AM, Cecil von Renthe-Fink returned to the hôtel du Parc, résidence of Maréchal, accompanied by General von Neubroon, who said he had "formal orders from Berlin" 10. The written instructions were given to Petain: "The government of the Reich orders the transfer of the head of state, even against his will" 10. When the maréchal refused again, the Germans threatened to have the Wehrmacht bomb Vichy. 10. After asking the Swiss ambassador, Walter Stucki, to witness the blackmail to which he was subjected, Pétain surrendered and ended the Laval administration.
  • 20 August 1944, the Germans take Pétain, against his will 11, from Vichy to the château de Morvillars near Belfort 13,14.

Dissolution and transition to Fourth Republic

Paul Ramadier as a deputy from Averyron in 1929.
Main articles: French Fourth Republic, Liberation of Paris, Tripartisme, and Third Force (France)

On 17 August 1944, Pierre Laval, head of government and minister of foreign affairs, held his last council of government with five ministers.[7] With permission from the Germans, he attempted to call back the prior National Assembly with the goal of giving it power[8] and thus impeding the communists and de Gaulle.[9] So he obtained the agreement of German ambassador Otto Abetz to bring Édouard Herriot, (President of the Chamber of Deputies) back to Paris.[9] But ultra-collaborationists Marcel Déat and Fernand de Brinon protested this to the Germans, who changed their minds[10] and took Laval to Belfort[11] along with the remains of his government, "to assure its legitimate security", and arrested Herriot.[12]

The liberation of France in 1944 dissolved the Vichy government. The Provisional Consultative Assembly requested representation, leading to the Provisional Government of the French Republic (French: Gouvernement provisoire de la République française, GPRF), also known as the French Committee of National Liberation. Past collaborators were discredited and Gaullism and communism became political forces.

De Gaulle led the GPRF 1944-1946 while negotiations took place for a new constitution, to be put to a referendum. De Gaulle advocated a presidential system of government, and criticized the reinstatement of what he pejoratively called "the parties system".[citation needed] He resigned in January 1946 and was replaced by Felix Gouin of the French Section of the Workers' International (Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière, SFIO). Only the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français, PCF) and the socialist SFIO supported the draft constitution, which envisaged a form of unicameralism. This constitution was rejected in the 5 May 1946 referendum.

French voters adopted the constitution of the Fourth Republic on 13 October 1946.

Other

See also: Overseas France, North African Campaign, Tunisian campaign, Italian occupation of Corsica, Jews outside Europe under Axis occupation, and French colonial empire
  • Scope of control: Maghreb, DOM/TOM
  • Name change of 'Zone libre' to 'south'; Italian piece
  • Collaborationism as separate subsection?
  • Deportations, antisemitic propaganda, ...?

After the fall of France on 25 June 1940 many French colonies were initially loyal to Vichy. But eventually the overseas empire helped liberate France; 300,000 North African Arabs fought in the ranks of the Free French.[13] French Somaliland, an exception, got a governor loyal to Vichy on 25 July. It surrendered to Free French forces on 26 December 1942. Te length and extent of each colony's collaboration with Vichy ran a gamut however; anti-semitic meansures met an enthusiastic reception in Algeria, for example.[14]

Operation Torch on 8 November landed Allied troops at Oran and Algiers (Operation Terminal) as well as at Casablanca in Morocco, to attack Vichy territories in North Africa -- Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia -- then take Axis forces in the Western Desert in their rear from the east.[15] Allied shipping had needed to supply troops in Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, so the Mediterranean ports were strategically valuable.

After the fall of France (25 June 1940) the colony was briefly in limbo until a governor loyal to the Vichy government was installed on 25 July. It was the last French possession in Africa to remain loyal to Vichy, surrendering to Free French forces only on 26 December 1942.

Jurisdiction and effectiveness

Foreign relations

Main article: Foreign relations of Vichy France
See also: Free France, Free French Forces, Battle of Madagascar, and Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre

The French State was quickly recognized by the Allies, as well as by the Soviet Union, until 30 June 1941 and Operation Barbarossa. However France broke with the United Kingdom after the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. The United States took the position that Vichy should do nothing adverse to US interests that was not specifically required by the terms of the armistice. Canada maintained diplomatic relations with Vichy until the occupation of southern France in Case Anton by Germany and Italy in November 1942.[16]

French India under Louis Bonvin announced after the fall of France that they would join the British and the French under Charles de Gaulle.[citation needed]

Legitimacy

  • initial power transfer, 20 missing delegates during voting, etc., law of 10 July 1940
  • recognition by other states: US:yes UK:no, etc.
  • 1944 loi not annulled, but 'void ab initio'

Pétain never did promulgate a new constitution. The laws that laid the constitutional framework for his regime were declared nuls through the ordonnance of 9 August 1944 that re-established republican legality.

The United States gave Vichy full diplomatic recognition, and sent Admiral William D. Leahy as ambassador. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull hoped to encourage elements in the Vichy government opposed to military collaboration with Germany. The Americans also wanted Vichy to resist German demands for its naval fleet or air bases in French-mandated Syria or to move war supplies through French territories in North Africa. Americans held that France should take no action not explicitly required by the armistice terms that could adversely affect Allied efforts in the war. The Americans ended relations with Vichy when Germany occupied all of France in late 1942.

The USSR maintained relations with Vichy until 30 June 1941, after the Nazis invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa.

France for a long time took the position that the republic had been disbanded when power was turned over to Pétain, but officially admitted in 1995 complicity deporting of 76,000 Jews during WW II, when 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, said: "France, on that day [16 July 1942], committed the irreparable. Breaking its word, it handed those who were under its protection over to their executioners," he said. Those responsible for the roundup were "4500 policemen and gendarmes, French, under the authority of their leaders [who] obeyed the demands of the Nazis..... the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state".[17][18][19]

The police under Bousquet collaborated to the point where they themselves compiled the lists of Jewish residents, handed out yellow stars, and even requisitioned buses and SNCF trains to transport them to camps such as Drancy.

See also

References

Notes
  1. ^ Cointet 2011, p. 38.
  2. ^ Cointet 1993, p. 228-249.
  3. ^ Kupferman 2006, p. 269.
  4. ^ Cotillon 2009, p. 2, 16.
  5. ^ Devers 2007.
  6. ^ "Ministres de Vichy issus de l'Ecole Polytechnique" [Vichy Ministers who are alumni of the Ecole Polytechnique]. Association X-Resistance. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  7. ^ André Brissaud (preface Robert Aron), La Dernière année de Vichy (1943-1944) (The Last Year of Vichy), Paris, Librairie Académique Perrin, 1965, 587 p. (ASIN B0014YAW8Q), p. 504-505. The ministers were Jean Bichelonne, Abel Bonnard, Maurice Gabolde, Raymond Grasset et Paul Marion.
  8. ^ Robert O. Paxton (trans. Claude Bertrand, preface. Stanley Hoffmann), La France de Vichy – 1940-1944, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, collection Points-Histoire, 1997 (reprint November 1999) (1st ed. 1973), 475 p. (ISBN 978-2-02-039210-5), p. 382-383
  9. ^ a b Fred Kupferman (pref. Henry Rousso), Laval, Paris, Tallandier, 2006, 2nd ed. (1st ed. Balland, 1987), 654 p. (ISBN 978-2-84734-254-3), p. 520-525.
  10. ^ André Brissaud, La Dernière année de Vichy (1943-1944), op. cit., p. 491-492
  11. ^ Eberhard Jäckel (trad. fr German by Denise Meunier, pref. Alfred Grosser), La France dans l'Europe de Hitler ([« Frankreich in Hitlers Europa – Die deutsche Frankreichpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg »] France in Hitler's Europe), Paris, Fayard, collec. "Les grandes études contemporaines", 1968 (1st ed. Deutsche Verlag-Anstalg GmbH, Stuttgart, 1966), 554 p. (ASIN B0045C48VG), p. 495.
  12. ^ Fred Kupferman, Laval, op. cit., p. 527-529.
  13. ^ Robert Gildea, France since 1945 (1996) p 17
  14. ^ Michael Robert Marrus; Robert O. Paxton (1995). Vichy France and the Jews. Stanford University Press. p. 191 – via Google Books. {{cite book}}: Text "ISBN 0804724997" ignored (help)
  15. ^ Playfair, I. S. O.; Molony, C. J. C.; Flynn, F. C. & Gleave, T. P. (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO 1966]. Butler, J. R. M. (ed.). The Mediterranean and Middle East: The Destruction of the Axis Forces in Africa. History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series. IV. Uckfield: Naval & Military Press. ISBN 1-84574-068-8.
  16. ^ Jackson & Kitson 2020, p. 82.
  17. ^ "France opens WW2 Vichy regime files". BBC News. 28 December 2015. Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 16 December 2017.
  18. ^ Allocution de M. Jacques CHIRAC Président de la République prononcée lors des cérémonies commémorant la grande rafle des 16 et 17 juillet 1942 (Paris) Archived 13 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Président de la république
  19. ^ "Allocution de M. Jacques CHIRAC Président de la République prononcée lors des cérémonies commémorant la grande rafle des 16 et 17 juillet 1942 (Paris)" (PDF). www.jacqueschirac-asso (in French). 16 July 1995. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 July 2014. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
Sources

Further reading

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