VICHY: France's Shield or Hitler's Sword?

Lindsay Pollick reviews changing interpretations. The Debate

Discussion of Vichy, the regime which ruled the southern part of France during the Second

World War, still evokes high emotion in France 70 years after it first came to power. During this

time perceptions of Vichy have changed from it being seen as France's saviour to it being

labelled 'an illegitimate regime' that did not represent the French people.

In the immediate post-war period some people believed that the Vichy government had, on the

whole, been a good thing for France and had offered her protection from the Nazis. Certainly

some historians exemplified by Robert Aron (the 'conventionalists' or 'Vichy apologists') have

advocated the 'shield' theory, claiming that the regime saved France from the worst excesses of

Nazism. Some go even further, claiming that Pétain was not only protecting France but was

engaged in a double game with the Allies and was just waiting for the wind to blow in the right

direction before switching sides. It has also been claimed that there were two Vichys: an

honourable Vichy of Pétain, and a second Vichy of Laval which brought shame upon France.

Others such as General de Gaulle, the man who led the Resistance during the war and went on to

become President, dealt with the Vichy regime by proclaiming it illegitimate. It was also at this

time that the Resistance myth was created, allowing the French nation to believe it had liberated

itself.

There is not enough space here to deal with all the controversies and issues surrounding Vichy

and France during the Second World War, and so this article will specifically focus on the key

'shield' debate: did Vichy shield France from the worst excesses of Nazism or did actually assist

Hitler?

The 'shield' thesis was widely accepted until the early 1970s, when an American historian,

Robert Paxton, revisited this period in France's history. Paxton's basic argument was that Vichy

was neither a shield to protect France from the Nazis, and nor was it a passive or puppet regime.

His view was that, on the contrary, Vichy had virtually begged Hitler to accept its collaboration

(this word has acquired a negative meaning since the Second World War and is applied to

persons or groups who help foreign occupiers of their country). Furthermore, Paxton argued,

Vichy went beyond mere collaboration and in some areas enthusiastically pursued Nazi policy.

We will examine two areas of policy where Vichy's effectiveness as a shield has been most

persistently claimed: forced labour and the Jewish Final Solution. Before looking at these areas

though, we must establish the context in which Vichy came to power.

The Vichy Regime In June 1940 France was in chaos. The Germans had invaded and were en route for Paris, French

defences had mostly crumbled, and hundreds of thousands of people were on the move,

including the French government which had fled Paris and (after a brief interlude at Tours) taken

up residence at Bordeaux. German forces entered Paris on 14th June and the government had to

decide whether to continue the fight from North Africa or to request an armistice. Two days later

the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, resigned, handing over to Marshal Philippe Pétain, an

elderly, deeply conservative World War One veteran revered in France as the 'Victor of Verdun'.

Pétain, like many others, favoured an armistice with Germany. Thus on 22 June 1940, in the

historic railway carriage at Compiègne (where the 1918 Armistice with Germany was signed) the

Franco-German Armistice was signed. France was demilitarised and partitioned, the Germans

occupying the northern and coastal areas, including Paris, with Pétain leading a semi-

autonomous regime in the unoccupied South.

The new regime set up camp in the small spa town of Vichy, chosen for its central geographical

location, modern telephone system and abundance of hotel rooms, which were transformed into

ministerial offices. Over the following weeks the Third Republic was dismantled and the État

Français created, with Marshal Pétain given full powers as Head of the French State. Pierre

Laval, an ex-Prime Minister and experienced politician, became his deputy.

During the next four years Pétain and his constantly reshuffled cabinet pursued a 'National

Revolution', which, with its traditional conservative values of travail, famille, patrie (work,

family, nation), was designed to return France to her roots. Religion, once again, returned to the

heart of politics, and the government enacted legislation to make divorce more difficult and to

encourage the formation of Catholic schools. As one historian aptly put it, 'Vichy's gaze was

firmly fixed on the past'. As well as embarking on their own programme of regenerating France,

Vichy also entered into a policy of collaboration with the Germans. It has even been claimed by

some that Vichy was in fact a fascist state; and with its corporatist, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic

and antisocialist policies, one could say that it had much in common with Mussolini's Italy.

Initially there was much support for the regime (admittedly much of this was due to Pétain who

was treated with reverence by the French people), but as conditions in France gradually

worsened following German occupation of the whole of France in November 1942, Vichy's

popularity declined dramatically. And after the Service du Travail Obligatoire (labour

conscription law) was introduced in February 1943, outright resistance to the regime was

commonplace. By the time the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches in June 1944, a civil war

was on the verge of breaking out.

The Allied victory in 1945 sealed the fate of those involved in the Vichy government. Pétain and

Laval were brought to trial for their collaboration with the occupiers. Pétain had already made

clear what his defence would be. He argued, in a declaration made as he was whisked off by the

Germans to Hohenzollern castle in Sigmaringen shortly before Liberation, that 'everything that

has been done by me, everything I have accepted, admitted, put up with, whether willingly or by

force, has only been so for your safe-keeping. For if I could no longer be your sword, I wished to

be your shield'. At his trial in July 1945, Pétain further advanced this argument: it had been better

for France to be run by Frenchmen than by Germans, and as a result France had fared better than

other occupied countries (Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Poland). Laval used the same

basic arguments. He attempted to defend himself by claiming that in two areas - French Labour

and the Jews - his government had managed to act as a 'screen' between the conqueror and the

vanquished. Pétain and Laval set a precedent which other Vichyites were only too happy to use

in their defence. Yet in the fevered atmosphere of 1945 these arguments failed. Pétain and Laval

were found guilty of high treason and of complicity with the enemy. Both were sentenced to

death, though the former's death sentence was commuted by his former protégé, General de

Gaulle.

The regime thus ended with collapse and execution. But how did it begin?

Hitler's Aims Hitler never wanted France as a co-belligerent and did not encourage collaboration; as long as

resources to aid the war effort were forthcoming, the Nazis showed little or no interest in Vichy

or what it stood for. In fact Hitler's intentions were evident in the terms of the Armistice: the

severe economic clauses imposed, the demilitarisation, the provision of raw materials to

Germany from France, and the most striking feature of the Armistice - the division of the country

into two principal zones.

In short, Hitler wanted to neutralise France whilst at the same time having a semi-autonomous

French government on French soil to run the show. He told Mussolini on 17 June 1940 that he

wanted a French government functioning on French territory, 'thus avoiding the danger of a

French government fleeing abroad and continuing the war' and also avoiding the Germans

having to do anything in the 'administrative sphere'. Hitler did not wish to waste vital resources

on the occupation of France. This was evident by the numbers of troops and police he stationed

there, which did not reach 40,000 throughout the four years of occupation. In the short term

Hitler wanted maximum resources for minimum effort. In the long term he sought the dissection

of a nation, ending permanently the threat posed by his large neighbour. This is evident from

what Jackson terms the 'Balkanisation' of France: as well as splitting France in two in the

Armistice of 1940, the Germans also created further zones such as the annexed zone, a

prohibited zone and a reserved zone.

Collaboration The reaction of the French camp to the Armistice terms shows how very little they understood

Hitler. The French were shocked at the severity of the terms, whereas Hitler had in fact

moderated them in an attempt to stave off any civil unrest. Nevertheless, Vichy clearly decided

to collaborate with Germany and this was officially confirmed when Pétain met Hitler on 24

October 1940 at Montoire. Six days after this meeting Pétain announced in a radio broadcast: 'A

collaboration has been envisaged between our two countries. I have accepted the principle of it.

This collaboration must be sincere.'

What did Vichy hope to achieve by collaborating with the occupiers? Pétain and his cronies all

believed that Britain would be defeated and that the war would soon be over. One colleague,

General Weygand, predicted that 'in three weeks Great Britain will have its neck wrung like a

chicken'. They therefore concentrated their efforts on showing just how well they could work

with the Germans. From the beginning of its life in the summer of 1940 the impetus for

collaboration came from Vichy and not from Hitler. Collaboration to Vichy meant solidifying its

position in what would become a German-dominated Europe. To Hitler, however, collaborations

simply meant extra resources for Germany from a weakened France. With the benefit of

historical hindsight, it is clear that Germany achieved its aims, whilst the French placed their bet

on the wrong horse.

We can now turn to a brief examination of how the principle of collaboration manifested itself in

policy.

Forced Labour In June 1942 the Nazi Minister for Labour, Fritz Sauckel, arrived in Paris. His mission was to

apply Hitler's new labour law to France. This law imposed the conscription of labour in occupied

Belgium, Holland and France. Prior to 1942, the Germans had been able to use Poles and

Russians to man their factories. However, Hitler was now pursuing a war on two fronts (the USA

and USSR had entered the war) and Germany needed more manpower. Hitler therefore sent

Sauckel to the other occupied countries for more men to keep his war machine running.

With popularity for Vichy already declining due to repression, shortages of food and lack of any

tangible gains from the Germans, the regime was vehemently opposed to the labour conscription

law. Yet, conscious of the need to placate the demands of the occupiers, Laval proposed to link

the question of workers for Germany with the return of some of the 1.6 million prisoners of war

from the Reich - la relève. Laval soon believed the relive to be a success, and be himself made

the journey to Compiègne to meet the first trainload of returnees. But whilst the relive worked

for a few months it never enticed enough workers to the Reich (49,000 in total), so in February

1943 the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO), a straightforward labour conscription law, was

imposed. This obliged all men between the ages of 18 and 50 to work for the Germans

indefinitely, or at least until the end of the war. Just a few months after the relève was

implemented, then, Germany had reverted to its original policy, which proved very effective. By

the end of the war the number of Frenchmen working for the Reich totalled over one million.

However, if what Laval claimed at his trial in 1945 was true - that Germany had earmarked 'two

million men' for deportation and had obtained only about half of this number - then perhaps one

can give Vichy some credit in this area for limiting the numbers conscripted.

Vichy could also rightly claim that the French did not suffer as much as the Poles with regard to

labour supply to the Reich. However, as Paxton points out, 'everyone knows that the Poles

suffered more in World War II' and 'Nazi contempt for Slavic Untermenschen makes Poland an

invalid comparison with France'. A much fairer comparison is to look at how the totally occupied

western European countries like Holland and Belgium fared. The statistics are unhelpful to

Vichy apologists: 3.4 per cent of Belgians were conscripted under German labour law, 3 per cent

of the Dutch and 3.3 per cent for France. More importantly, the French contributed much more in

the area of forced labour than Norway and Denmark, which both contributed very little to the

Reich's war effort. Indeed by 1943 France had become the 'largest single supplier of male labour'

to Germany in Europe. Any claim that Vichy policy shielded France from the demands of

Germany for foreign labour is thus very difficult to sustain.

It is also important to consider the effect the Resistance had in deterring people from complying

with the labour law. When the STO was introduced in February 1943 it was becoming apparent

that the Allies were in the ascendant and this encouraged many young men who might have been

compelled to go to Germany to join the Maquis (one of the resistance groups). As Kedward

rightly points out, 'an increasing percentage of those called for service in Germany failed to

appear'. Thus if anything shielded the French from forced labour it was more likely the

Resistance and Allied progress in the war than the Vichy government.

Vichy policy in this area then achieved little. The relive succeeded only in buying time (eight

months' grace to be exact) and it did not succeed in obtaining French exemption from forced

labour in the long run. And whilst the numbers of French people sent to work in the Reich

numbered less than the Poles and the Russians, Vichy did not receive any favourable treatment

or gain any concessions as a result of collaboration. It is therefore questionable if Vichy shielded

France at all.

Vichy's Jewish Policy The fate of the Jews in Vichy France is another area which has sparked great debate. Historians

such as Paxton and Zuccoti argue that the Vichy regime not only failed to protect the Jewish

population in France but that it actually worsened their plight. On the other hand, others such as

Aron, and also of course many Vichyites, claim that Vichy successfully protected many French

Jews from deportation and worse.

Immediately after signing the Armistice Vichy embarked upon its own programme of dealing

with the 'Jewish problem'. Legislation implemented in October 1940, just three months after

Pétain came to power, set the scene when it removed a prohibition on racist comments in the

press. This was followed by the Statuts des Juifs. Under this law anyone with three Jewish

grandparents was defined as Jewish and thereby excluded from various professions. Vichy

legislation also forced Jews to register themselves and their property, as well as stripping them of

their French citizenship. Pétain performed detailed censuses of Jews in France and later made

this information available to the Nazis. In addition, Vichy allowed the use of French police in the

deportation process. Vichy police rounded up and interned foreign-born Jews in the unoccupied

zone at a time when Jews in the German-occupied zone were free. And finally it was French

police, not Germans, who carried out the notorious Vél d'Hiver round-up in July 1942 (the

round-up, arrest and deportation of 8,000 foreign Jews, including women and often French-born

children, who were placed in the Vélodrome d'Hiver, a stadium in Paris, in inhumane conditions

before being deported).

Despite Vichy's treatment of the Jews, and as Pétain and Laval rightly pointed out at their trials,

the statistics show that 76 per cent of Jews living in France survived - a much larger number than

in Holland (14 per cent) and Belgium (45 per cent). Laval and others also declared that they were

not anti-Semitic and that this was evidenced by Vichy refusing to apply the law that decreed

Jews must wear a yellow star with the word 'juif' on it. Furthermore Vichyites claim they saved

many French Jews. Laval even claimed that 'tens of thousands of Jewish people' owed 'their

liberty and lives' to him.

Paxton argues that there was a strong, long-standing, indigenous anti-Semitism in France. He has

a point. One has only to look back to the end of the nineteenth century at the infamous Dreyfus

affair to see that anti-Semitism was strong in France. Furthermore the anti-Semitic measures

implemented in France were initiated by Vichy; they were not enacted in response to German

demands. There was initially no attempt by the Nazi occupiers to persuade Vichy to embark on

an anti-Semitic programme in the unoccupied zone, and historians have found no evidence in the

German archives of the Reich pressurising Vichy to apply anti-Semitic legislation. In fact the

Nazis had been surprised but no doubt pleased - at the speed with which the French implemented

their own anti-Jewish laws. In little over a year between October 1940 and December 1941, 109

anti-Jewish laws had been published - all at a time when Vichy's autonomy was at its greatest.

Paxton and others, whilst agreeing that the number of surviving Jews in France was high, have

asserted that Vichy cannot be credited for this. Ironically Italian-occupied Alpine France

provided refuge for many Jews, as did the French people. It should also be borne in mind that

France bordered two neutral countries and thus had various escape routes available, and also that

France had vast amount of rural land that could offer hiding for Jews. In fact the question that

should be asked is why so many Jews died, not so few. After all, in many of the remote areas of

France, particularly the southeast, there was not a German soldier or official in sight throughout

the whole four years of the occupation. It would have been easy for Vichy to turn a blind eye and

encourage Jews to seek refuge in these areas.

It is difficult to argue with the view that Vichy voluntarily embraced Hitler's racial policies and,

in so doing, facilitated the Final Solution. In 1942 the German ambassador to Vichy France, Otto

Abetz, minuted that the Vichy authorities 'would be happy to get rid of the Jews in any way

whatsoever without too much fuss', and this they did. The regime, far from protecting the Jewish

population, participated enthusiastically in the Holocaust.

Conclusion So what can we deduce from all this? Can Vichy be credited with shielding France? Some

certainly believed so at the time. But Vichy did not enable France to live out the war in comfort

in fact France provided more labour, industrial resources and materiel to Germany than any other

defeated state. And Vichy certainly did not shield France's Jews - far from it. Vichy pursued its

own anti-Semitic programme with vigour. Even when it became clear that the tide had turned

and the Allies were highly likely to win the war, anti-Semitic polices were not toned down. In

fact the number of Jews being deported by French forces intensified. It also cannot be claimed by

Vichy's leaders that they did not know of the fate of the Jews. As early as August 1942 French

Jewish leaders had warned Vichy of what was happening. One thus finds it hard to accept Aron

and the Vichy apologists' assessment. On the contrary, the evidence is of a regime that positively

aligned itself with and assisted Hitler's war effort.

In the end one must make a final judgement on Vichy and its policy of collaboration. In the two

areas of policy analysed it can be seen that Vichy's effectiveness as a shield was less successful

than claimed by Aron and members of the Vichy regime. However, it is difficult to concur with

Paxton's view that 'Vichy never constituted a shield and spared France little'. The regime, as we

have seen, did achieve some minor concessions. That said, even if we take the view that Vichy

did provide some shield and did 'prepare the way for Liberation by preserving France, suffering

but alive', as Pétain stated in 1944, it created a terrible legacy. The fallout from this is still being

grappled with today. Numerous Presidents since the Second World War have tried to dismiss or

ignore the reality of what happened in France between 1940 and 1944, perhaps mindful of the

population's desire to remember a virtuous resistant France rather than a France associated with

the Nazi taboo. It is only recently, under increased pressure from revisionist historians, Jewish

groups and a growing desire amongst the younger generations to address the past, that a French

President has expressed remorse. In August 1995, shortly after taking office, President Jacques

Chirac admitted that France had a past to address, when he said that 'the criminal insanity of the

occupying power was … helped by the French people, helped by the French State'. Perhaps his

statement marked the beginning of what may be a long process of collective catharsis by the

French nation.

Issues to Debate • What motives led Pétain to sign an Armistice with Germany in June 1940?

• To what extent did Vichy serve as a wartime shield for the French people?

• Did the Vichy regime bring any advantages for the French people?

Further Reading A. Nossiter, France and the Nazis: Memories, Lies and the Second World War (Methuen, 2003);

I. Ousby, Occupation, The Ordeal of France 1940-44 (Pimlico, 1999); H.R. Kedward, Occupied

France: Collaboration and Resistance, 1940-1944 (Wiley Blackwell, 1985); R.O. Paxton, Vichy:

Old Guard and New Order 1940-1944 (Columbia University Press, 2001); M. Curtis, Verdict on

Vichy (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002); H. Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome (Harvard University

Press, 1994).

MAP: Above: France during the Second World War.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Above: Pierre Laval (left) and Marshal Pétain (right), in 1942.

Three years later both men were tried for high treason and found guilty.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Left: Hitler greets Field Marshal Pétain at Montoire on 24

October 1940. Why did the two men expect such different things from the Vichy regime?

PHOTO (COLOR): Above: This Vichy propaganda poster depicts a peaceful regime bravely

demanding freedom from the attacks of freemasonry, Jews, de Gaulle and lies.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Above: A cartoon attacking the subservience of the Vichy regime

to the Nazis. How accurately does this image expose the nature of Vichy rule in France?

~~~~~~~~

By Lindsay Pollick

Lindsay Pollick is a graduate of Huddersfield University, where she has taught study skills to

first-year students.

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