Lawsuit of Riom

The Procès of Riom was held during the Second world war, in the town of Riom.

On the initiative of the Mode of Vichy, the purpose of it was to judge the political officials of the III {{E}} French République for their responsibilities in the defeat for 1940. This lawsuit was finally never finished, the defendants starting to prove that it was the Army (in particular of many dignitaries of the new mode) and not the policies which were responsible. The defendants were given later to the German .

Defendants

Several Loi S was founded by the mode of Vichy to be able to carry out administrative internments political former heads. The defendants were:

The charges against Paul Reynaud and Georges Mandel were thereafter abandoned, before the opening of the lawsuit.

Leon Blum, Edouard Daladier and the general Maurice Gamelin were held with the Château of Chazeron and the Fort of Portalet. Guy the Room and Robert Jacomet with the Castle of Bourrassol on the commune of Ménétrol in the Puy-de-Dôme.

Charges

It is the Supreme court of justice, instituted by article 2 of the constitutional Act n°5 of the July 30th 1940, which was in load of the instruction. The Court took its function the next month, the August 8th in Riom. The lawsuit owed " to judge the immediate ministers, former ministers or their subordinates (...) shown to have betrayed the duties of their load in the acts which contributed in the passing of the state of peace to the state of war before the September 4th 1939 and in those which worsened later on the consequences of the situation thus created ". The period of the facts judged by the court went from 1936 (which corresponds on arrival of the Popular front to the capacity) to 1940 (which corresponds to the fall of the Republic). The charge wanted to show that the policies had made serious faults, one in particular reproached them not for not having equipped the Army rather well. Several of these errors, settings end to end, would have been the cause of the French defeat vis-a-vis the German army.

It should be noted that " crimes" clerks were retroactively defined (i.e. at the time of the facts, the so-called crimes made were not according to the Law), which is contrary with all the principles legal French and international (contrary to the Procès of Nuremberg, in which the charges had already a penal base, whose gravity was a posteriori increased).

Actually, the lawsuit was especially to sit a certain legitimacy with the Régime of Vichy, by showing that IIIe République was a bad political system, which had led the France to the defeat. Certain members of the Army saw in this lawsuit a means of rejecting the fault of the French rapid demolished on others. And finally, the mode Nazi was too happy to show the inefficiency of the Démocratie and that they was its political officials who were the " instigators of guerre" (it was indeed France and not Germany which had declared the war with the second, during the invasion of the Poland).

Whereas instruction tramples and that tension goes up in conflict, in particular after invasion of Soviet Union by Germany June 22nd 1941, Marshal Pétain announces with radio that it will condemn itself culprits (what he can do after the decree of the constitutional Act n°7 of the January 27th 1941), after having listened to the opinion of the political Council of justice which he founds. This new body returns its conclusions the October 16th 1941. The Pétain Marshal decides then:

  • to give up the continuations against Paul Reynaud and Georges Mandel. The latter will be imprisoned all the same arbitrarily with the Fort of Portalet. They will be given to the Germans later.
  • the five others marked are accused and condemned to detention.

After the Pétain Marshal condemned the political officials, they are the men, as citizens, who will be judged with Riom (in accordance with article 4 of the constitutional Act n° 7 qu ' it had issued). Thus the President of the Court, Caous, precise at the beginning of the lawsuit which the defendants are regarded as simple defendants and who For the court, the lawsuit is not and will be never a political lawsuit . However, it will be it.

The lawsuit

The opening of the lawsuit which takes place finally the February 19th 1942.

More than 400 witnesses have to appear, many are soldiers having to prove that the Army was not equipped enough and that only the persons in charge are in question in French rendering. The Loi the 40 hours of work per week was presented as one of the faults of the governments of the old mode of IIIe République (whereas it had never been applied in all its rigor). The Paid vacations and the Nationalization S moreover were pointed finger. The weakness in repressions of the " subversive elements and revolutionists " was also presented like a fault: as many reasons to condemn the defendants according to Vichy.

Whereas Gamelin was keep silent ( To conceal to me, it is still to be useful he repeated) and that the Room and Jacomet were at the very least timid in their defense, it went from there differently from Daladier and Blum, which, by their baited defense, were the genuine high-speed motorboats of this lawsuit. Both tried to show the inconsistencies and the obvious lack of precision of the evidence with loads (a witness passed from 7.000 to 6.000 German tanks in five minutes) and non-observance of the rules of bases of a fair trial and right. They mixed even the Maréchal Pétain with the debates ( Today Gambetta would be in prison and Bazaine with the government Daladier declared on the tone of the irony). Blum defended the policy followed during its presidency of the council (larger effort of war since 1918, whereas the governments in which took part Laval and Pétain had reduced the budget of the army) and even that of the communist . It will refer in particular to Jean-Pierre Timbaud: I was often battles about it with him. Only, he was shot and he died by singing the Marseillaise… Alors, with regard to PCF, I will not add anything . Blum undoubtedly notes moreover that the governments which succeeded to him and which preceded that by Daladier into 1937/38 are not concerned, because their chief joined in Vichy. It had Felix Gouin for lawyer.

In spite of the fact that the question of military operations of September 1939 in June 1940 was not to be approached during the lawsuit, the evolution of this last clarified more and more the truth; namely that the responsibility for the defeat fell mainly on the deficiency and the manifest deficiencies of the military high command; and that the same applied as for the choice of the Armistice and from the rendering which followed. Present during all the lawsuit, the foreign newspapers reported with accuracy the words and the facts. The French press, as for it, spoke about it less and less: the marked indicters finding itself, one did not have especially to put in the embarrassment the new mode, this last having made pass from the very clear instructions on the way in which one was to present the business.

Adolf Hitler was exasperated by the turning of the events and declared the March 15th: How we wait of Riom, it is a standpoint on the responsibility for the fact even of the war! . Germany then makes pressure on the mode of Vichy to put an end to the lawsuit and to thus try to limit the damage. The April 14th, after 24 audiences, the lawsuit is suspended for a “ additional information ”.

The pleading of Leon Blum, reported by the foreign press, is worth a great sympathy near the Americans to him. The former President of the Council receives in 1942 a Télégramme for his birthday, signed by Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the President Roosevelt. And the December 7th, the NewYork Times title an article For Leon Blum . In 1943, it is off-set with Buchenwald, then later with Dachau.

The business is definitively enclosed the May 21st 1943.

Quotation

  • This lawsuit is a typical joke of the democracy . (Benito Mussolini)

References

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