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Dr Chris Millington Swansea [email protected]@DrChris82Frenchhistoryonline.com
Life in Occupied ParisThe Resistancea)De Gaulle and the Free Frenchb)Domestic resistancec)Communist resistanceWhat was ‘resistance’?How many French resisted?
Above: Pétain meets Hitler at Montoire, Oct.1940Left: ‘Are you more French than him?’
1. Street sellers offer them [the Germans] maps of Paris and phrasebooks; buses pour out incessant waves of them in front of Notre-Dame and the Panthéon; there is not one of them who has not got a camera to his eye. Be under no illusion: they are not tourists.
‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013
‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013
‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013
‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013
‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013
‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013
No, not in 1940: there was resistance inside and outside France
Charles de Gaulle, leader of the London-based Free FrenchChristian Pineau, founder of Libération-Nord
Based in London
De Gaulle speaks to France via the BBC
Located at the Arc de Triomphe, Paris
1940-1941: de Gaulle and his comrades are isolated
Free French agents, under Dewavrin, operate in France
On 2 October 1941 de Gaulle claims to be directing the resistance……
But he has little knowledge of, and contact with, resistance movements in France
BBC radio is primary means of actions
1940: disjointed and diversePractical problems – such as the
Demarcation Line - obstruct operations
There are several groups in the North and the South such as Libération-Nord and Libération- Sud – two different groups
The presence of the Germans makes resistance difficult
Groups were fragmented, small, often did not survive
Printing materials controlled
A 1944 British propaganda poster:‘French resistance helps throttle the Boche’
Groups are freer to act than in the North
But there is a need to break public complacency
Image from a resistance poster
Vichy propaganda presented the Marshal as the saviour of France and the French
Jean MoulinGathers information on the
resistance movements during 1941, and meets de Gaulle in London in October that year
He was the link between London and France
Resistance leaders meet with de Gaulle (1942)
13 July 1942, Britain recognises the Free French as leader of the whole resistance
Conseil National de la Résistance, created May 1943, under the impetus of Jean Moulin
The CNR was ‘the voice of the internal resistance’ (Nick Atkin)
The CNR recognised de Gaulle as representative of French interest.
A Free French poster, showing the Cross of Lorraine
1940 – French Communist Party is officially neutral
1941 – Nazi invasion of USSR sees a change in policy
Communists commit violent attacks against Germans
L’Humanité was, and is, the newspaper of French communism
A Communist recruitment poster:‘The Irregulars and French Partisans are going to spill their blood for the people of Paris’
- A vital form of propaganda
- Most important in the South
- Used for recruitment, spread of ideas, opposition
- But how many people read them?
- Example of 14 July 1942 – shows public awareness of the Resistance
Combat (Southern resistance)
Published by The Midnight PressWritten by Jean Bruller, aka ‘Vercors’Encouraged ‘moral’ resistance – in
this way it reflected the time in which it was written (before 1942)
Image from Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1949 film
Not very!Few French had heard of a
movementOnly in mid-1942 did the public
begin to turn away from Vichy14 July 1942, first signs of mass
public disaffection
- Women did take part in combat but were more important In logistical and support roles- Fighting still thought of as a man’s job
Is it simply active resistance? According to US historian Robert
Paxton, about 400, 000 French were members or a movement
2 million read the underground press Only in 1943 did French turn away from
Vichy The ‘overwhelming majority’ of French
were not prepared to resist – they were as good as collaborators
Should we count minor acts, and passive resistance, too?
US historian John Sweets thinks so There were many brave but small acts
of resistance outside the movements We need to think again about the
meaning of ‘resistance’ Was it enough to just think anti-
German thoughts?
Imagine that Britain was defeated in 1940
The Nazis are in London and a collaborationist government runs the country
Visions of a Nazi Britain
Resist, of course!But, on second thoughts…….
