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Introduction of the personal capacity

the Parlement was joined together in National Assembly (Senate and House of Commons) the July 10th 1940, and allotted the “full powerss” to the marshal Pétain, under the combined pressure of the circumstances (no member of Parliament having voted against was ensured to leave free), of the lies of Pierre Laval (which had promised the maintenance of the Republic to members of Parliament of left, of which some engage then in the Résistance) and of délitement general (a broad part of the right-hand side does not have more confidence in parliamentarism, a good part of the radicals slipped at the center right, if not on the right, certain Socialists are completely disorientated by the events). Only 80 members of Parliament voted against.
a posteriori (and as some rare voices could say it at the time), this reform can seem to us coarsely unconstitutional, because the competence of revision entrusted by the constitution of 1875 to the National Assembly was not the particular property of the latter, but its exclusive function . According to our modern legal designs, some thus find obvious that the Parliament could neither delegate nor to transfer this function to whoever. Nevertheless, the Third Republic had a practically unlimited design of the competence of the National Assembly, which could for example authorize the Gouvernement to promulgate laws by decree. However, it remains that the confusion of all the capacities (legislative component, , executive and legal) between the hands of only one man was completely contrary with the same bases of the Constitution of 1875: comprehensible to gain the war , when the circumstances seem to require it (as there are multiple historical examples), this concentration was unjustifiable to require peace.
Thus the acts written by Pétain thanks to the vote of the July 10th 1940 founded a “French State” in the place of the République. Soon, the republican currency “Freedom, Equality, Fraternité” was going to be replaced by the currency “Travail, Famille, Patrie” while the song “Maréchal, here us are!” was going to compete with the Marseillaise (officially preserved).

the Vichy government had as a chief Pierre Laval 1940, then the admiral François Darlan in 1941 and 1942, and again Pierre Laval, until the fall of the Mode of Vichy in 1944.

For the majority of the French, completely disabled by the massive exodus and the military defeat, then relieved by the armistice, the circumstances of the introduction of the new mode were of no importance, and the replacement of a republic overcome by a mode adapted to the period of war and of occupation, an obviousness.

Moreover, the old Marshal, whose patriotism appeared above any suspicion and undeniable honesty, inspired confidence to them. The prestige which it had gained during the First World War (battles of Verdun) reinforced its image of saver of the fatherland. The more so as the radio and the newspapers did not cease praising its merits. Some went even until thinking that at its simple sight, the impressed Germans would lower their requirements and would apply to France a favorable treatment. Thus with the favor of the defeat, Pétain became the icon of a dictatorial mode.

The installation of an authoritarian regime and laws of exclusion

The mode of Vichy is a mixture of Paternalisme, pacifism, and patriotism. The political borders are completely scrambled by the circumstances. The objectives are also rather confused: the mode was born from a purely metropolitan design of France, but it is in the colonies that it has a true autonomy. It results from it from the orientations which appear especially a posteriori

a refusal of reality, similar to that of Germany of 1918: the victorious war veterans of the First World War cannot admit that the defeat is initially soldier . It is thus the whole company which are guilty, and also the British who betrayed, and American S which was not there when one needed them, etc This topic will be exploited and reinforced with the business of Mers El-Kébir and the first bombardments combined on objectives in France.
a form of Realpolitik: France is overcome, it is better to subject itself to Germany that to try a vain resistance, whose experiment of 1871 showed the limits and the dangers. And then Germany having overcome France can only overcome, it is thus worth to better make itself useful than to be made an enemy of it.
the topic of the imitation: Germany did not overcome by chance but thanks to a comprehensive policy which should be imitated. The Antisémitisme seems a major component, but the other components are there: enrôlement of youth, the worship of health and the physical culture, the topic of the mother, the worship of the chief, the topic of the return to true and old values, the anticommunism, militarism, etc This argument is particularly proposed by the Extrême right-hand side, in sympathy with the Nazisme, which sees with the mode of Vichy the occasion of a revenge.
the topic of the fault, and even of the Sinned : France, either, is not overcome by chance, it made a political fault by deviating from the authoritative model which triumphed over all its borders (Germany, Italy, Spain…). It is thus necessary to wash sin, that to have believed in the Popular front, with the social laws (40 hours, paid vacations, etc), that to have neglected the family, the traditional values (housewives…), agriculture, the religion, and of course anti-semitism. This is important because it will occur, in 1945, for the same reason, a new inversion; the women will obtain, finally, the right to vote.

The worship of the personality

France adopts into force the FührerPrinzip in Germany, Italy, Spain: these countries have to them Führer , them Duce , them Caudillo , it will have its Maréchal.

The exaltation of the marshal, on the basis of his states of service of 1914-1918 and its intention posted to save France became the favorite topic of the media, initially spontaneously, then under the narrow control of the Censure.

The portrait of the marshal was spread in the hearths of the French, who counted on him in these difficult circumstances. The image of the " bouclier" protecting the France will impose themselves, and survive even at the end of the war in a broad fringe of the population.

The image of the old marshal was present everywhere, not only in the public places, but also in the windows of all the stores, where it replaced the goods absent because of the forced taking away of the winner.

As for recalcitrant or skeptics (rare at the beginning, increasingly many with time), they found Pétain in the drawer of their office, in the shape of stamps, and they again found it on their mail, with each time they opened their letter boxes.

The social enrollment

Youth was naturally placed under control. The children of the schools ravelled, in sports gears, the arm tended to greet “with the Roman” (i.e. in the same way that the Nazi S and the Fasciste S Italian), by singing “Marshal here us are”. This enrollment was compared by certain authors with that practiced by the totalitarian modes of Germany, Italy and the USSR. One multiplies the occasions of collective demonstrations, organized in front of the marshal, his representatives civil or military or his legionaries chiefs. All that under the auspices of the Marshal, whose portraits decorate, in multiple specimens, the buildings for youth: classify, local scout, etc, have a general portrait, plus for each team or patrols.

Pétain, under cover of its slogan “Work, Family, Fatherland”, enclosed the whole of the French in a network of parallel hierarchies, starting from its “French Légion of the combatants” (LFC). In this one were indeed gathered not only of true war veterans, but also of many partisans of his “National Revolution” who had never fought, like the Friends of the Legion and the Juniors by the Legion.

In addition a war veteran passed to the Fascism, Joseph Darnand, admiror pre-war period of the system Nazi, created a “Service of order legionary” (GROUND), and extended it to all the southern zone and North Africa. This organization the proud ones with arm went, with the personal support of the Marshal, to take the name of “French Milice”, after the allied unloading and the German invasion of the southern zone, and to devote themselves to repression with like objective imitating the Nazi Germany perfectly, therefore to put itself at its service.

Like any dictator, the Marshal founded, under the name of “national Revolution”, an authoritarian regime, where all the civils servant, including the soldiers and the judges, were to lend oath to him. He benefitted from the full powerss to immediately start repression and true a Chasse for the witches. Whereas the refugees were still on the roads, it made rain without delay the suspensions of civils servant badly-thinking or pertaining to honnis groups (freemasons and Jews). The Black-market and the antijuives laws made denouncement a national sport, the libelous becoming a means of regulating all the small objections of daily life and economic denunciation.

Discrimination and the anti-semitism

The mode adopted, without null German pressure, of the laws of exclusion against the freemasons and the Juifs, children included/understood. These laws of the French State were copied from the laws Nazis, which they equalized in hardness for their victims, they were thus much more rigorous than those of fascistic Italy.

The mode was put at the service of the policy of the Nazi Germany for hunting for the Jews, which were stopped by the French police force, entrusted to the French gendarmerie, generally conveyed in the trains of the SNCF towards the Concentration camps French (Drancy and well of others) before being given to the Nazis within the framework of the “Final solution”.

The question of legality

According to Raymond Aron, “the mode of Vichy made conspicuous France during the war; only of all the governments of the occupied countries, he asserted his legality until the end, fought nozzle and nails against the encroachments of the authorities of occupation at the point to assert the responsibility to do itself what dishonoured it (for example deportation of the Jews). ”

See too

Internal bonds

External bond

Collaboration and Résistance: France of 1940 to 1944 Cliotexte.

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