Vichy France

France under German occupation (Germans occupied the southern zone starting in November 1942—Operation Case Anton). The yellow zone was under Italian administration.

Personal flag of Philippe Pétain, Chief of State of Vichy France (Chef de l'État Français)

After the National Assembly under the Third Republic voted to give full powers to Philippe Pétain on 10 July 1940, the name République Française (French Republic) disappeared from all official documents. From that point on, the regime was referred to officially as the État Français (French State). Because of its unique situation in the history of France, its contested legitimacy,[1] and the generic nature of its official name, the "French State" is most often represented in English by the synonyms "Vichy France", "Vichy regime", "government of Vichy", or in context, simply "Vichy".

The territory under the control of the Vichy government was the unoccupied, southern portion of France south of the Line of Demarcation, as established by the Armistice of 22 June 1940, and the overseas French territories, such as French North Africa, which was "an integral part of Vichy", and where all antisemitic Vichy's laws were also implemented. This was called the Unbesetztes Gebiet (Unoccupied zone) by the Germans, and known as the Zone libre (Free Zone) in France, or less formally as the "southern zone" (zone du sud) especially after Operation Anton, the invasion of the Zone libre by German forces in November 1942. Other contemporary colloquial terms for the Zone libre were based on abbreviation and wordplay, such as the "zone nono", for the non-occupied Zone.[7]

In theory, the civil jurisdiction of the Vichy government extended over most of metropolitan France, French Algeria, the French protectorate in Morocco, the French protectorate of Tunisia, and the rest of the French colonial empire that accepted the authority of Vichy; only the disputed border territory of Alsace-Lorraine was placed under direct German administration.[8] Alsace-Lorraine was officially still part of France, as the Reich never annexed the region. The Reich government at the time was not interested in attempting to enforce piecemeal annexations in the West (although it later did annex Luxembourg) – it operated under the assumption that Germany's new western border would be determined in peace negotiations that would be attended by all of the Western Allies, thus producing a frontier that would be recognised by all of the major powers. Since Adolf Hitler's overall territorial ambitions were not limited to recovering Alsace-Lorraine, and since Britain was never brought to terms, these peace negotiations never took place.

The Nazis had some intention of annexing a large swath of northeastern France and replacing that region's inhabitants with German settlers, and initially forbade French refugees from returning to this region. These restrictions, which were never thoroughly enforced, were basically abandoned following the invasion of the Soviet Union, which had the effect of turning the Nazis' territorial ambitions almost exclusively to the East. German troops guarding the boundary line of the northeastern Zone interdite were withdrawn on the night of 17–18 December 1941 although the line remained in place on paper for the remainder of the occupation.[9]

Nevertheless, effectively Alsace-Lorraine was annexed: German law applied to the region, its inhabitants were conscripted into the Wehrmacht and pointedly the customs posts separating France from Germany were placed back where they had been between 1871 and 1918. Similarly, a sliver of French territory in the Alps was under direct Italian administration from June 1940 to September 1943. Throughout the rest of the country, civil servants were under the formal authority of French ministers in Vichy. René Bousquet, the head of French police nominated by Vichy, exercised his power in Paris through his second-in-command, Jean Leguay, who coordinated raids with the Nazis. German laws took precedence over French ones in the occupied territories, and the Germans often rode roughshod over the sensibilities of Vichy administrators.

On 11 November 1942, following the landing of the Allies in North Africa (Operation Torch), the Axis launched Operation Anton, occupying southern France and disbanding the strictly limited "Armistice Army" that Vichy had been allowed by the armistice.

Vichy's claim to be the legitimate French government was denied by Free France and by all subsequent French governments[1] after the war. They maintain that Vichy was an illegal government run by traitors, having come to power through an unconstitutional coup d'état. Pétain was constitutionally appointed the Premier by President Lebrun on 16 June 1940, and he was legally within his rights to sign the armistice with Germany; yet, his decision to ask the National Assembly to dissolve itself while granting him dictatorial powers has been more controversial. Historians have particularly debated the circumstances of the vote by the National Assembly of the Third Republic, granting full powers to Pétain on 10 July 1940. The main arguments advanced against Vichy's right to incarnate the continuity of the French state were based on the pressure exerted by Pierre Laval, former Premier in the Third Republic, on the deputies in Vichy, and on the absence of 27 deputies and senators who had fled on the ship Massilia, and thus could not take part in the vote. However, during the war the Vichy government was internationally recognized,[10] notably by the United States[11] and several other major Allied powers.[12][13][14] Diplomatic relations with Great Britain had been severed since 8 July 1940, after the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir.

The armistice divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones: northern and western France, including the entire Atlantic coast, was occupied by Germany, and the remaining two-fifths of the country was under the control of the French government with the capital at Vichy under Pétain. Ostensibly, the French government administered the entire territory.

Germany took two million French soldiers as prisoners of war and sent them to camps in Germany. About one-third had been released on various terms by 1944. Of the remainder, the officers and NCOs (corporals and sergeants) were kept in camps but were exempt from forced labour. The privates were first sent to "Stalag" camps for processing and were then put out to work. About half of them worked in German agriculture, where food rations were adequate and controls were lenient. The others worked in factories or mines, where conditions were much harsher.[44]

French colonial prisoner in German captivity, 1940[45]

The Germans occupied northern France directly. The French had to pay costs for the 300,000-strong German occupation army, amounting to 20 million Reichsmarks per day, paid at the artificial rate of twenty Francs to the Reichsmark. This was 50 times the actual costs of the occupation garrison. The French government also had responsibility for preventing French citizens from escaping into exile.

Article IV of the Armistice allowed for a small French army—the Army of the Armistice (Armée de l'Armistice)—stationed in the unoccupied zone, and for the military provision of the French colonial empire overseas. The function of these forces was to keep internal order and to defend French territories from Allied assault. The French forces were to remain under the overall direction of the German armed forces.

The exact strength of the Vichy French Metropolitan Army was set at 3,768 officers, 15,072 non-commissioned officers, and 75,360 men. All members had to be volunteers. In addition to the army, the size of the Gendarmerie was fixed at 60,000 men plus an anti-aircraft force of 10,000 men. Despite the influx of trained soldiers from the colonial forces (reduced in size in accordance with the Armistice) there was a shortage of volunteers. As a result, 30,000 men of the class of 1939 were retained to fill the quota. At the beginning of 1942 these conscripts were released, but there were still not enough men. This shortage remained until the dissolution, despite Vichy appeals to the Germans for a regular form of conscription.

The Vichy French Metropolitan Army was deprived of tanks and other armoured vehicles, and was desperately short of motorised transport, a particular problem for cavalry units. Surviving recruiting posters stress the opportunities for athletic activities, including horsemanship, reflecting both the general emphasis placed by the Vichy government on rural virtues and outdoor activities, and the realities of service in a small and technologically backward military force. Traditional features characteristic of the pre-1940 French Army, such as kepis and heavy capotes (buttoned-back greatcoats) were replaced by berets and simplified uniforms.

The Vichy authorities did not deploy the Army of the Armistice against resistance groups active in the south of France, reserving this role to the Vichy Milice (militia), a paramilitary force created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy government to combat the Resistance;[46] so that members of the regular army could defect to the Maquis after the German occupation of southern France and the disbandment of the Army of the Armistice in November 1942. By contrast, the Milice continued to collaborate and its members were subject to reprisals after the Liberation.

Vichy French colonial forces were reduced in accordance with the terms of the Armistice; still, in the Mediterranean area alone, Vichy had nearly 150,000 men under arms. There were about 55,000 in French Morocco, 50,000 in Algeria, and almost 40,000 in the Army of the Levant (Armée du Levant), in Lebanon and Syria. Colonial forces were allowed to keep some armoured vehicles, though these were mostly "vintage" World War I tanks (Renault FT).

The Armistice required France to turn over any German citizens within the country upon German demand. The French regarded this as a "dishonorable" term since it would require France to hand over persons who had entered France seeking refuge from Germany. Attempts to negotiate the point with Germany proved unsuccessful, and the French decided not to press the issue to the point of refusing the Armistice.

Pierre Laval with the head of German police units in France, SS-Gruppenführer Carl Oberg

Pierre Laval and Philippe Pétain in the Frank Capra documentary film Divide and Conquer (1943)

On 10 July 1940, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate gathered in joint session in the quiet spa town of Vichy, their provisional capital in central France. (Lyon, France's second-largest city, would have been a more logical choice but mayor Édouard Herriot was too associated with the Third Republic. Marseilles had a reputation as an organized crime hub. Toulouse was too remote and had a left-wing reputation. Vichy was centrally located and had many hotels for ministers to use.)[47] Pierre Laval and Raphaël Alibert began their campaign to convince the assembled Senators and Deputies to vote full powers to Pétain. They used every means available, promising ministerial posts to some while threatening and intimidating others. They were aided by the absence of popular, charismatic figures who might have opposed them, such as Georges Mandel and Édouard Daladier, then aboard the ship Massilia on their way to North Africa and exile. On 10 July the National Assembly, comprising both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, voted by 569 votes to 80, with 20 voluntary abstentions, to grant full and extraordinary powers to Marshal Pétain. By the same vote, they also granted him the power to write a new constitution.[48][note 1] By Act No. 2 on the following day, Pétain defined his own powers, and abrogated any Third Republic laws that were in conflict with them.[50] (These acts would later be annulled in August 1944.[1])

1942 Vichy France safe-conduct passport used for Algeria

Most legislators believed that democracy would continue, albeit with a new constitution. Although Laval said on 6 July that "parliamentary democracy has lost the war; it must disappear, ceding its place to an authoritarian, hierarchical, national and social regime", the majority trusted in Pétain. Léon Blum, who voted no, wrote three months later that Laval's "obvious objective was to cut all the roots that bound France to its republican and revolutionary past. His 'national revolution' was to be a counter-revolution eliminating all the progress and human rights won in the last one hundred and fifty years".[51] The minority of mostly Radicals and Socialists who opposed Laval became known as the Vichy 80. Deputies and senators who voted to grant full powers to Pétain were condemned on an individual basis after the liberation.

The majority of French historians and all post-war French governments contend that this vote by the National Assembly was illegal. Three main arguments are put forward:

• Abrogation of legal procedure
• The impossibility for parliament to delegate its constitutional powers without controlling its use a posteriori
• The 1884 constitutional amendment making it unconstitutional to put into question the "republican form" of the government

Julian T. Jackson wrote that "There seems little doubt, therefore, that at the beginning Vichy was both legal and legitimate." He stated that if legitimacy comes from popular support, Pétain's massive popularity in France until 1942 made his government legitimate; if legitimacy comes from diplomatic recognition, over 40 countries including the United States, Canada, and China recognised the Vichy government. According to Jackson, de Gaulle's Free French acknowledged the weakness of its case against Vichy's legality by citing multiple dates (16 June, 23 June and 10 July) for the start of Vichy's illegitimate rule, implying that at least for some period of time, Vichy was not yet illegitimate.[52] Countries recognised the Vichy government despite de Gaulle's attempts in London to dissuade them; only the German occupation of all of France in November 1942 ended diplomatic recognition. Partisans of Vichy point out that the grant of governmental powers was voted by the two chambers of the Third Republic (the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies), in conformity with the law.

The argument concerning the abrogation of legal procedure is based on the absence and non-voluntary abstention of 176 representatives of the people – the 27 on board the Massilia, and an additional 92 deputies and 57 senators, some of whom were in Vichy, but not present for the vote. In total, the parliament was composed of 846 members, 544 Deputies and 302 Senators. One Senator and 26 Deputies were on the Massilia. One Senator did not vote; 8 Senators and 12 Deputies voluntarily abstained; 57 Senators and 92 Deputies involuntarily abstained. Thus, out of a total of 544 Deputies, only 414 voted; and out of a total of 302 Senators, only 235 voted. Of these, 357 Deputies voted in favour of Pétain and 57 against, while 212 Senators voted for Pétain, and 23 against. Thus, Pétain was approved by 65% of all Deputies and 70% of all Senators. Although Pétain could claim legality for himself – particularly in comparison with the essentially self-appointed leadership of Charles de Gaulle – the dubious circumstances of the vote explain why a majority of French historians do not consider Vichy a complete continuity of the French state.[53]

The text voted by the Congress stated:

The National Assembly gives full powers to the government of the Republic, under the authority and the signature of Marshal Pétain, to the effect of promulgating by one or several acts a new constitution of the French state. This constitution must guarantee the rights of labor, of family and of the homeland. It will be ratified by the nation and applied by the assemblies which it has created.[54]

1943 1 Franc coin. Front: "French State". Back: "Work Family Homeland".

The Constitutional Acts of 11 and 12 July 1940[55] granted to Pétain all powers (legislative, judicial, administrative, executive – and diplomatic) and the title of "head of the French state" (chef de l'État français), as well as the right to nominate his successor. On 12 July Pétain designated Laval as vice-president and his designated successor, and appointed Fernand de Brinon as representative to the German High Command in Paris. Pétain remained the head of the Vichy regime until 20 August 1944. The French national motto, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood), was replaced by Travail, Famille, Patrie (Work, Family, Homeland); it was noted at the time that TFP also stood for the criminal punishment of "travaux forcés à perpetuité" ("forced labor in perpetuity").[56] Reynaud was arrested in September 1940 by the Vichy government and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1941 before the opening of the Riom Trial.

Pétain was reactionary by nature, his status as a hero of the Third Republic during World War I notwithstanding. Almost as soon as he was granted full powers, Pétain began blaming the Third Republic's democracy and endemic corruption for France's humiliating defeat by Germany. Accordingly, his government soon began taking on authoritarian characteristics. Democratic liberties and guarantees were immediately suspended.[51] The crime of "felony of opinion" (délit d'opinion) was re-established, effectively repealing freedom of thought and expression; critics were frequently arrested. Elective bodies were replaced by nominated ones. The "municipalities" and the departmental commissions were thus placed under the authority of the administration and of the prefects (nominated by and dependent on the executive power). In January 1941 the National Council (Conseil National), composed of notables from the countryside and the provinces, was instituted under the same conditions. Despite the clear authoritarian cast of Pétain's government, he did not formally institute a one-party state, he maintained the Tricolor and other symbols of republican France, and unlike many far rightists, he was not an anti-Dreyfusard. Pétain excluded fascists from office in his government, and by and large his cabinet comprised "February 6 men" (i.e. members of the "National Union government" formed after the 6 February 1934 crisis following the Stavisky Affair) or mainstream politicians whose career prospects had been blocked by the triumph of the Front populaire in 1936.[57]

Japanese troops entering Saigon in 1941

In June 1940, the Fall of France made the French hold on Indochina tenuous. The isolated colonial administration was cut off from outside help and outside supplies. After negotiations with Japan, the French allowed the Japanese to set up military bases in Indochina.[62] This seemingly subservient behaviour convinced Major-General Plaek Pibulsonggram, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, that Vichy France would not seriously resist a campaign by the Thai military to recover parts of Cambodia and Laos that had been taken from Thailand by France in the early 20th century. In October 1940, the military forces of Thailand attacked across the border with Indochina and launched the Franco-Thai War. Although the French won an important naval victory over the Thais, Japan forced the French to accept Japanese mediation of a peace treaty that returned the disputed territory to Thai control. The French were left in place to administer the rump colony of Indochina until 9 March 1945, when the Japanese staged a coup d'état in French Indochina and took control, establishing their own colony, the Empire of Vietnam, as a puppet state controlled by Tokyo.

To counter the Vichy government, General Charles de Gaulle created the Free French Forces (FFL) after his Appeal of 18 June 1940 wireless speech. Initially, Winston Churchill was ambivalent about de Gaulle, and Churchill severed diplomatic ties with Vichy only when it became clear that the Vichy government would not join the Allies.

Until 1962, France possessed four small, non-contiguous but politically united colonies across India, the largest being Pondicherry in Southeast India. Immediately after the fall of France, the Governor General of French India, Louis Alexis Étienne Bonvin, declared that the French colonies in India would continue to fight with the British allies. Free French forces from that area (and others) participated in the Western Desert campaign, although news of the death of French-Indian soldiers caused some disturbances in Pondicherry. The French possessions in Oceania joined the Free French side in 1940, or in one case in 1942. They then served as bases for the Allied effort in the Pacific and contributed troops to the Free French Forces.[63]

Following the Appeal of 18 June, debate arose among the population of French Polynesia. A referendum was organised on 2 September 1940 in Tahiti and Moorea, with outlying islands reporting agreement in the following days. The vote was 5564 to 18 in favour of joining the Free French side.[64] Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, American forces identified French Polynesia as an ideal refuelling point between Hawaii and Australia and, with de Gaulle's agreement, organised "Operation Bobcat" sending nine ships with 5000 American soldiers to build a naval refuelling base and airstrip and set up coastal defence guns on Bora Bora.[65] This first experience was valuable in later Seabee (phonetic pronunciation of the naval acronym, CB, or Construction Battalion) efforts in the Pacific, and the Bora Bora base supplied the Allied ships and planes that fought the battle of the Coral Sea. Troops from French Polynesia and New Caledonia formed a Bataillon du Pacifique in 1940; became part of the 1st Free French Division in 1942, distinguishing themselves during the Battle of Bir Hakeim and subsequently combining with another unit to form the Bataillon d'infanterie de marine et du Pacifique; fought in the Italian Campaign, distinguishing themselves at the Garigliano during the Battle of Monte Cassino and on to Tuscany; and participated in the Provence landings and onwards to the liberation of France.[66][67]

In the New Hebrides, Henri Sautot promptly declared allegiance to the Free French on 20 July, the first colonial head to do so.[68] The outcome was decided by a combination of patriotism and economic opportunism in the expectation that independence would result.[69][70] Sautot subsequently sailed to New Caledonia, where he took control on 19 September.[68] Due to its location on the edge of the Coral Sea and on the flank of Australia, New Caledonia became strategically critical in the effort to combat the Japanese advance in the Pacific in 1941–1942 and to protect the sea lanes between North America and Australia. Nouméa served as a headquarters of the United States Navy and Army in the South Pacific,[71] and as a repair base for Allied vessels. New Caledonia contributed personnel both to the Bataillon du Pacifique and to the Free French Naval Forces that saw action in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.

In Wallis and Futuna the local administrator and bishop sided with Vichy, but faced opposition from some of the population and clergy; their attempts at naming a local king in 1941 (to buffer the territory from their opponents) backfired as the newly elected king refused to declare allegiance to Pétain. The situation stagnated for a long while, due to the remoteness of the islands and because no overseas ship visited the islands for 17 months after January 1941. An aviso sent from Nouméa took over Wallis on behalf of the Free French on 27 May 1942, and Futuna on 29 May 1942. This allowed American forces to build an airbase and seaplane base on Wallis (Navy 207) that served the Allied Pacific operations.[72]

A Vichy France plan to have Western Union build powerful transmitters on Saint Pierre and Miquelon in 1941 to enable private trans Atlantic communications was blocked following pressure by Roosevelt, then on 24 December 1941 Free French forces on three corvettes, supported by a submarine landed and seized control of Saint Pierre and Miquelon on orders from Charles de Gaulle without reference to any of the Allied commanders.[73]

French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, removed its Vichy supporting government on 22 March 1943,[74] shortly after eight allied ships were sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Guiana,[75] and the arrival of American troops by air on 20 March.[74]

Martinique became home to the bulk of the Gold reserve of the Bank of France, with 286 tons of gold transported there on the French cruiser Émile Bertin in June 1940. The Island was blockaded by the British navy until an agreement was reached to immobilise French ships in port. The British used the gold as collateral for Lend-Lease facilities from the US, on the basis it could be "acquired" at any time if needed.[73] In July 1943 Free French sympathisers on the Island took control of the gold and the fleet once Admiral Georges Robert departed after a threat from America to launch a full-scale invasion.[74]

Guadeloupe in the French West Indies also changed allegiance in 1943 after Admiral Georges Robert ordered police to fire on protestors,[76] before he fled back to Europe.

In Central Africa, three of the four colonies in French Equatorial Africa went over to the Free French almost immediately: French Chad on 26 August 1940, French Congo on 29 August 1940, and Ubangi-Shari on 30 August 1940. They were joined by the French mandate of Cameroun on 27 August 1940. One colony in French Equatorial Africa, Gabon, had to be occupied by military force between 27 October and 12 November 1940.[77]

On 23 September 1940, the Royal Navy and Free French forces under Charles de Gaulle launched Operation Menace, an attempt to seize the strategic, Vichy-held port of Dakar in French West Africa (modern Senegal). After attempts to encourage them to join the Allies were rebuffed by the defenders, a sharp fight erupted between Vichy and Allied forces. HMS Resolution was heavily damaged by torpedoes, and Free French troops landing at a beach south of the port were driven off by heavy fire. Even worse from a strategic point of view, bombers of the Vichy French Air Force based in North Africa began bombing the British base at Gibraltar in response to the attack on Dakar. Shaken by the resolute Vichy defence, and not wanting to further escalate the conflict, British and Free French forces withdrew on 25 September, bringing the battle to an end.

On 8 November 1940, Free French forces under the command of de Gaulle and Pierre Koenig, along with the assistance of the Royal Navy, invaded Vichy-held Gabon. Gabon, which was the only territory of French Equatorial Africa that was unwilling to join the Free French Forces, fell into allied hands on 12 November 1940, after the capital Libreville was bombed and captured. The final Vichy troops in Gabon surrendered without any military confrontation with the Allies at Port-Gentil. The capture of Gabon by the Allies was crucial to ensure that the entire French Equatorial Africa was out of Axis reach.

Map of French Somaliland, 1922

The governor of French Somaliland (now Djibouti), Brigadier-General Paul Legentilhomme, had a garrison of seven battalions of Senegalese and Somali infantry, three batteries of field guns, four batteries of anti-aircraft guns, a company of light tanks, four companies of militia and irregulars, two platoons of the camel corps and an assortment of aircraft. After visiting from 8–13 January 1940, Wavell decided that Legentilhomme would command the military forces in both Somalilands should war with Italy come.[78] In June, an Italian force was assembled to capture the port city of Djibouti, the main military base.[79] After the fall of France in June, the neutralisation of Vichy French colonies allowed the Italians to concentrate on the more lightly defended British Somaliland.[80] On 23 July, Legentilhomme was ousted by the pro-Vichy naval officer Pierre Nouailhetas and left on 5 August for Aden, to join the Free French. In March 1941, the British enforcement of a strict contraband regime to prevent supplies being passed on to the Italians, lost its point after the conquest of the AOI. The British changed policy, with encouragement from the Free French, to "rally French Somaliland to the Allied cause without bloodshed". The Free French were to arrange a voluntary ralliement by propaganda (Operation Marie) and the British were to blockade the colony.[81]

Wavell considered that if British pressure was applied, a rally would appear to have been coerced. Wavell preferred to let the propaganda continue and provided a small amount of supplies under strict control. When the policy had no effect, Wavell suggested negotiations with the Vichy governor Louis Nouailhetas, to use the port and railway. The suggestion was accepted by the British government but because of the concessions granted to the Vichy regime in Syria, proposals were made to invade the colony instead. In June, Nouailhetas was given an ultimatum, the blockade was tightened and the Italian garrison at Assab was defeated by an operation from Aden. For six months, Nouailhetas remained willing to grant concessions over the port and railway but would not tolerate Free French interference. In October, the blockade was reviewed, but the beginning of the war with Japan in December led to all but two blockade ships being withdrawn. On 2 January 1942, the Vichy government offered the use of the port and railway, subject to the lifting of the blockade but the British refused and ended the blockade unilaterally in March.[82]

The next flashpoint between Britain and Vichy France came when a revolt in Iraq was put down by British forces in June 1941. German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) aircraft, staging through the French possession of Syria, intervened in the fighting in small numbers. That highlighted Syria as a threat to British interests in the Middle East. Consequently, on 8 June, British and Commonwealth forces invaded Syria and Lebanon. This was known as the Syria-Lebanon campaign or Operation Exporter. The Syrian capital, Damascus, was captured on 17 June and the five-week campaign ended with the fall of Beirut and the Convention of Acre (Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre) on 14 July 1941.

The additional participation of Free French forces in the Syrian operation was controversial within Allied circles. It raised the prospect of Frenchmen shooting at Frenchmen, raising fears of a civil war. Additionally, it was believed that the Free French were widely reviled within Vichy military circles, and that Vichy forces in Syria were less likely to resist the British if they were not accompanied by elements of the Free French. Nevertheless, de Gaulle convinced Churchill to allow his forces to participate, although de Gaulle was forced to agree to a joint British and Free French proclamation promising that Syria and Lebanon would become fully independent at the end of the war.

From 5 May to 6 November 1942, British and Commonwealth forces conducted Operation Ironclad, known as the Battle of Madagascar: the seizure of the large, Vichy French-controlled island of Madagascar, which the British feared Japanese forces might use as a base to disrupt trade and communications in the Indian Ocean. The initial landing at Diégo-Suarez was relatively quick, though it took British forces a further six months to gain control of the entire island.

Operation Torch was the American and British invasion of French North Africa, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, started on 8 November 1942, with landings in Morocco and Algeria. The long-term goal was to clear German and Italian forces from North Africa, enhance naval control of the Mediterranean, and prepare for an invasion of Italy in 1943. The Vichy forces initially resisted, killing 479 Allied forces and wounding 720. Vichy Admiral Darlan initiated co-operation with the Allies. The Allies recognised Darlan's self-nomination as High Commissioner of France (head of civil government) for North and West Africa. He ordered Vichy forces there to cease resisting and co-operate with the Allies, and they did so. By the time the Tunisia Campaign was fought, the French forces in North Africa had gone over to the Allied side, joining the Free French Forces.[83][84]

Henri Giraud and de Gaulle during the Casablanca Conference in January 1943

In North Africa, after the 8 November 1942 putsch by the French resistance, most Vichy figures were arrested, including General Alphonse Juin, chief commander in North Africa, and Admiral François Darlan. Darlan was released, and U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower finally accepted his self-nomination as High Commissioner of North Africa and French West Africa (Afrique occidentale française, AOF), a move that enraged de Gaulle, who refused to recognise Darlan's status. After Darlan signed an armistice with the Allies and took power in North Africa, Germany violated the 1940 armistice with France and invaded Vichy France on 10 November 1942 (operation code-named Case Anton), triggering the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon.

Henri Giraud arrived in Algiers on 10 November 1942, and agreed to subordinate himself to Admiral Darlan as the French Africa army commander. Even though Darlan was now in the Allied camp, he maintained the repressive Vichy system in North Africa, including concentration camps in southern Algeria and racist laws. Detainees were also forced to work on the Trans-Saharan Railway. Jewish goods were "aryanized" (i.e. stolen), and a special Jewish Affairs service was created, directed by Pierre Gazagne. Numerous Jewish children were prohibited from going to school, something which not even Vichy had implemented in metropolitan France.[85] Admiral Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942 in Algiers by the young monarchist Bonnier de La Chapelle. Although de La Chapelle had been a member of the resistance group led by Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie, it is believed he was acting as an individual.

After Admiral Darlan's assassination, Henri Giraud became his de facto successor in French Africa with Allied support. This occurred through a series of consultations between Giraud and de Gaulle. De Gaulle wanted to pursue a political position in France and agreed to have Giraud as commander-in-chief, as the more qualified military person of the two. Later, the Americans sent Jean Monnet to counsel Giraud and to press him to repeal the Vichy laws. After difficult negotiations, Giraud agreed to suppress the racist laws, and to liberate Vichy prisoners from the South Algerian concentration camps. The Cremieux decree, which granted French citizenship to Jews in Algeria and which had been repealed by Vichy, was immediately restored by General de Gaulle.

Giraud took part in the Casablanca conference, with Roosevelt, Churchill, and de Gaulle, in January 1943. The Allies discussed their general strategy for the war, and recognised joint leadership of North Africa by Giraud and de Gaulle. Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle then became co-presidents of the Comité français de la Libération Nationale, which unified the Free French Forces and territories controlled by them and had been founded at the end of 1943. Democratic rule for the European population was restored in French Algeria, and the Communists and Jews liberated from the concentration camps.[85]

At the end of April 1945 Pierre Gazagne, secretary of the general government headed by Yves Chataigneau, took advantage of his absence to exile anti-imperialist leader Messali Hadj and arrest the leaders of his party, the Algerian People's Party (PPA).[85] On the day of the Liberation of France, the GPRF would harshly repress a rebellion in Algeria during the Sétif massacre of 8 May 1945, which has been qualified by some historians as the "real beginning of the Algerian War".[85]

French Police registering new inmates at the Pithiviers camp

French Milice guarding detainees

Germany interfered little in internal French affairs for the first two years after the armistice, as long as public order was maintained.[88] As soon as it was established, Pétain's government voluntarily took measures against "undesirables": Jews, métèques (immigrants from Mediterranean countries), Freemasons, Communists, Gypsies (also known as Romani), homosexuals,[89] and left-wing activists. Inspired by Charles Maurras's conception of the "Anti-France" (which he defined as the "four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons, and foreigners"), Vichy persecuted these supposed enemies.

In July 1940, Vichy set up a special commission charged with reviewing naturalisations granted since the 1927 reform of the nationality law.[90] Between June 1940 and August 1944, 15,000 persons, mostly Jews, were denaturalised.[91] This bureaucratic decision was instrumental in their subsequent internment in the green ticket roundup.

The Internment camps in France inaugurated by the Third Republic were immediately put to new use, ultimately becoming transit camps for the implementation of the Holocaust and the extermination of all undesirables, including the Romani people (who refer to the extermination of the Romani as Porrajmos). A Vichy law of 4 October 1940 authorised internments of foreign Jews on the sole basis of a prefectoral order,[92] and the first raids took place in May 1941. Vichy imposed no restrictions on black people in the Unoccupied Zone; the regime even had a mulatto cabinet minister, the Martinique-born lawyer Henry Lémery.[93]

The Third Republic had first opened concentration camps during World War I for the internment of enemy aliens and later used them for other purposes. Camp Gurs, for example, had been set up in southwestern France after the fall of Catalonia, in the first months of 1939, during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), to receive the Republican refugees, including Brigadists from all nations, fleeing the Francoists. After Édouard Daladier's government (April 1938 – March 1940) took the decision to outlaw the French Communist Party (PCF) following the signing of the German–Soviet non-aggression pact (the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) in August 1939, these camps were also used to intern French communists. Drancy internment camp was founded in 1939 for this use; it later became the central transit camp through which all deportees passed on their way to concentration and extermination camps in the Third Reich and Eastern Europe. When the Phoney War started with France's declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939, these camps were used to intern enemy aliens. These included German Jews and anti-fascists, but any German citizen (or other Axis national) could also be interned in Camp Gurs and others. As the Wehrmacht advanced into Northern France, common prisoners evacuated from prisons were also interned in these camps. Camp Gurs received its first contingent of political prisoners in June 1940. It included left-wing activists (communists, anarchists, trade-unionists, anti-militarists) and pacifists, as well as French fascists who supported Italy and Germany. Finally, after Pétain's proclamation of the "French State" and the beginning of the implementation of the "Révolution nationale" (National Revolution), the French administration opened up many concentration camps, to the point that, as historian Maurice Rajsfus writes, "The quick opening of new camps created employment, and the Gendarmerie never ceased to hire during this period."[94]

Besides the political prisoners already detained there, Gurs was then used to intern foreign Jews, stateless persons, Romani, homosexuals, and prostitutes. Vichy opened its first internment camp in the northern zone on 5 October 1940, in Aincourt, in the Seine-et-Oise department, which it quickly filled with PCF members.[95] The Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, in the Doubs, was used to intern Romani.[96] The Camp des Milles, near Aix-en-Provence, was the largest internment camp in the Southeast of France; twenty-five hundred Jews were deported from there following the August 1942 raids.[97] Exiled Republican, antifascist Spaniards who had sought refuge in France after the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War were then deported, and 5,000 of them died in Mauthausen concentration camp.[98] In contrast, French colonial soldiers were interned by the Germans in French territory instead of being deported.[98]

Besides the concentration camps opened by Vichy, the Germans also opened some Ilags (Internierungslager) for the detention of enemy aliens on French territory; in Alsace, which was under the direct administration of the Reich, they opened the Natzweiler camp, the only concentration camp created by the Nazis on French territory. Natzweiler included a gas chamber, which was used to exterminate at least 86 detainees (mostly Jewish) with the aim of obtaining a collection of undamaged skeletons for the use of Nazi professor August Hirt.

The Vichy government took a number of racially motivated measures. In August 1940, laws against antisemitism in the media (the Marchandeau Act) were repealed, while decree n°1775 of 5 September 1943 denaturalised a number of French citizens, in particular Jews from Eastern Europe.[98] Foreigners were rounded-up in "Foreign Workers' Groups" (groupements de travailleurs étrangers) and as with the colonial troops, used by the Germans as manpower.[98] The Statute on Jews excluded them from the civil administration.

Vichy also enacted racial laws in its territories in North Africa. "The history of the Holocaust in France's three North African colonies (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) is intrinsically tied to France's fate during this period."[99][100][101][102][103]

With regard to economic contribution to the German economy, it is estimated that France provided 42% of the total foreign aid.[104]

In 1941, Nobel Prize winner Alexis Carrel, an early proponent of eugenics and euthanasia, and a member of Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party (PPF), advocated for the creation of the Fondation Française pour l'Étude des Problèmes Humains (French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems), using connections to the Pétain cabinet. Charged with the "study, in all of its aspects, of measures aimed at safeguarding, improving and developing the French population in all of its activities", the Foundation was created by decree of the collaborationist Vichy regime in 1941, and Carrel was appointed as "regent".[105] The Foundation also had for some time as general secretary François Perroux.

The Foundation was behind the 16 December 1942 Act mandating the "prenuptial certificate", which required all couples seeking marriage to submit to a biological examination, to ensure the "good health" of the spouses, in particular with regard to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and "life hygiene". Carrel's institute also conceived the "scholar booklet" ("livret scolaire"), which could be used to record students' grades in French secondary schools and thus classify and select them according to scholastic performance. Besides these eugenic activities aimed at classifying the population and improving its health, the Foundation also supported an 11 October 1946 law instituting occupational medicine, enacted by the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) after the Liberation.[106]

The Foundation initiated studies on demographics (Robert Gessain, Paul Vincent, Jean Bourgeois), nutrition (Jean Sutter), and housing (Jean Merlet), as well as the first polls (Jean Stoetzel). The foundation, which after the war became the INED demographics institute, employed 300 researchers from the summer of 1942 to the end of the autumn of 1944.[107] "The foundation was chartered as a public institution under the joint supervision of the ministries of finance and public health. It was given financial autonomy and a budget of forty million francs, roughly one franc per inhabitant: a true luxury considering the burdens imposed by the German Occupation on the nation's resources. By way of comparison, the whole Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) was given a budget of fifty million francs."[105]

Alexis Carrel had previously published in 1935 the best-selling book L'Homme, cet inconnu ("Man, This Unknown"). Since the early 1930s, Carrel had advocated the use of gas chambers to rid humanity of its "inferior stock", endorsing the scientific racism discourse. One of the founders of these pseudoscientifical theories had been Arthur de Gobineau in his 1853–1855 essay titled "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races".[106] In the 1936 preface to the German edition of his book, Alexis Carrel had added a praise to the eugenics policies of the Third Reich, writing the following:

The German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous.[108]

Carrel also wrote this in his book:

The conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to ensure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gasses. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts.[109]

Alexis Carrel had also taken an active part to a symposium in Pontigny organised by Jean Coutrot, the "Entretiens de Pontigny". Scholars such as Lucien Bonnafé, Patrick Tort, and Max Lafont have accused Carrel of responsibility for the execution of thousands of mentally ill or impaired patients under Vichy.[106]

Poster above the entrance of an anti-semitic exhibition called "The Jew and France"

A Nazi ordinance dated 21 September 1940 forced Jews of the "occupied zone" to declare themselves as such at a police station or sub-prefectures (sous-préfectures). Under the responsibility of André Tulard, head of the Service on Foreign Persons and Jewish Questions at the Prefecture of Police of Paris, a filing system registering Jewish people was created. Tulard had previously created such a filing system under the Third Republic, registering members of the Communist Party (PCF). In the department of the Seine, encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs, nearly 150,000 persons, unaware of the upcoming danger and assisted by the police, presented themselves at police stations in accordance with the military order. The registered information was then centralised by the French police, who constructed, under the direction of inspector Tulard, a central filing system. According to the Dannecker report, "this filing system is subdivided into files alphabetically classed, Jewish with French nationality and foreign Jewish having files of different colours, and the files were also classed, according to profession, nationality and street [of residency]".[110] These files were then handed over to Theodor Dannecker, head of the Gestapo in France, under the orders of Adolf Eichmann, head of the RSHA IV-D. They were used by the Gestapo on various raids, among them the August 1941 raid in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, which resulted in 3,200 foreign and 1,000 French Jews being interned in various camps, including Drancy.

On 3 October 1940, the Vichy government voluntarily promulgated the first Statute on Jews, which created a special underclass of French Jewish citizens, and enforced, for the first time in France, racial segregation.[111] The October 1940 Statute excluded Jews from the administration, the armed forces, entertainment, arts, media, and certain professions, such as teaching, law, and medicine. A Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs (CGQJ, Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives) was created on 29 March 1941. It was directed by Xavier Vallat until May 1942 and then by Darquier de Pellepoix until February 1944. Mirroring the Reich Association of Jews, the Union Générale des Israélites de France was founded.

The police oversaw the confiscation of telephones and radios from Jewish homes and enforced a curfew on Jews starting in February 1942. They also enforced requirements that Jews not appear in public places and ride only on the last car of the Parisian metro.

Along with many French police officials, André Tulard was present on the day of the inauguration of Drancy internment camp in 1941, which was used largely by French police as the central transit camp for detainees captured in France. All Jews and others "undesirables" passed through Drancy before heading to Auschwitz and other camps.

Two Jewish women in occupied Paris wearing yellow badges before the mass arrests

In July 1942, under German orders, the French police organised the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv) under orders by René Bousquet and his second in Paris, Jean Leguay, with co-operation from authorities of the SNCF, the state railway company. The police arrested 13,152 Jews, including 4,051 children—which the Gestapo had not asked for—and 5,082 women, on 16 and 17 July and imprisoned them in the Winter Velodrome in unhygienic conditions. They were led to Drancy internment camp (run by Nazi Alois Brunner and French constabulary police) and crammed into box cars and shipped by rail to Auschwitz. Most of the victims died en route due to lack of food or water. The remaining survivors were sent to the gas chambers. This action alone represented more than a quarter of the 42,000 French Jews sent to concentration camps in 1942, of whom only 811 would return after the end of the war. Although the Nazi VT (Verfügungstruppe) had directed the action, French police authorities vigorously participated. "There was no effective police resistance until the end of Spring of 1944", wrote historians Jean-Luc Einaudi and Maurice Rajsfus.[112]

The French police, headed by Bousquet, arrested 7,000 Jews in the southern zone in August 1942. 2,500 of them transited through the Camp des Milles near Aix-en-Provence before joining Drancy. Then, on 22, 23, and 24 January 1943, assisted by Bousquet's police force, the Germans organised a raid in Marseilles. During the Battle of Marseilles, the French police checked the identity documents of 40,000 people, and the operation sent 2,000 Marseillese people in the death trains, leading to the extermination camps. The operation also encompassed the expulsion of an entire neighbourhood (30,000 persons) in the Old Port before its destruction. For this occasion, SS-Gruppenführer Karl Oberg, in charge of the German Police in France, made the trip from Paris and transmitted to Bousquet orders directly received from Heinrich Himmler. It is another notable case of the French police's willful collaboration with the Nazis.[113]

In 1940, approximately 350,000 Jews lived in metropolitan France, less than half of them with French citizenship (the others being foreign, mostly exiles from Germany during the 1930s).[114] About 200,000 of them, and the large majority of foreign Jews, resided in Paris and its outskirts. Among the 150,000 French Jews, about 30,000, generally native from Central Europe, had been naturalised French during the 1930s. Of the total, approximately 25,000 French Jews and 50,000 foreign Jews were deported.[115] According to historian Robert Paxton, 76,000 Jews were deported and died in concentration and extermination camps. Including the Jews who died in concentration camps in France, this would have made for a total figure of 90,000 Jewish deaths (a quarter of the total Jewish population before the war, by his estimate).[116] Paxton's numbers imply that 14,000 Jews died in French concentration camps, but the systematic census of Jewish deportees from France (citizens or not) drawn under Serge Klarsfeld concluded that 3,000 had died in French concentration camps and 1,000 more had been shot. Of the approximately 76,000 deported, 2,566 survived. The total thus reported is slightly below 77,500 dead (somewhat less than a quarter of the Jewish population in France in 1940).[117]

Proportionally, either number makes for a lower death toll than in some other countries (in the Netherlands, 75% of the Jewish population was murdered).[116] This fact has been used as arguments by supporters of Vichy; according to Paxton, the figure would have been greatly lower if the "French state" had not willfully collaborated with Germany, which lacked staff for police activities. During the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942, Laval ordered the deportation of children, against explicit German orders. Paxton pointed out that if the total number of victims had not been higher, it was due to the shortage in wagons, the resistance of the civilian population, and deportation in other countries (notably in Italy).[116]

Commemorative plaque to the victims held in the Vel' d'Hiv after the 16–17 July 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris

For decades, the French government argued that the French Republic had been dismantled when Philippe Pétain instituted a new French State during the war and that the Republic had been re-established when the war was over. It was not for the Republic, therefore, to apologise for events that happened while it had not existed and that had been carried out by a State it did not recognise. For example, former President François Mitterrand had maintained that the Vichy Government, not France's Republic, was responsible. This position was more recently reiterated by Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front Party, during the 2017 election campaign.[118][119]

The first official admission that the French State had been complicit in the deportation of 76,000 Jews during WW II was made in 1995 by then 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. "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 "450 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".[120][121][122]

On 16 July 2017, also at a ceremony at the Vel' d'Hiv site, President Emmanuel Macron denounced the country's role in the Holocaust in France and the historical revisionism that denied France's responsibility for the 1942 roundup and subsequent deportation of 13,000 Jews. "It was indeed France that organised this", Macron insisted, French police collaborating with the Nazis. "Not a single German" was directly involved," he added. Macron was even more specific than Chirac had been in stating that the Government during the War was certainly that of France. "It is convenient to see the Vichy regime as born of nothingness, returned to nothingness. Yes, it's convenient, but it is false. We cannot build pride upon a lie."[123][124]

Macron made a subtle reference to Chirac's remark when he added, "I say it again here. It was indeed France that organized the roundup, the deportation, and thus, for almost all, death."[125][126]

Vichy rhetoric exalted the skilled labourer and small businessman. In practice, the needs of artisans for raw materials were neglected in favour of large businesses.[131] The General Committee for the Organization of Commerce (CGOC) was a national program to modernise and professionalise small business.[132]

In 1940 the government took direct control of all production, which was synchronised with the demands of the Germans. It replaced free trade unions with compulsory state unions that dictated labour policy without regard to the voice or needs of the workers. The centralised, bureaucratic control of the French economy was not a success, as German demands grew heavier and more unrealistic, passive resistance and inefficiencies multiplied, and Allied bombers hit the rail yards; Vichy made the first comprehensive long-range plans for the French economy. The government had never before attempted a comprehensive overview. De Gaulle's Provisional Government in 1944–45 quietly used the Vichy plans as a base for its own reconstruction program. The Monnet Plan of 1946 was closely based on Vichy plans.[133] Thus both teams of wartime and early postwar planners repudiated prewar laissez-faire practices and embraced the cause of drastic economic overhaul and a planned economy.[134]

Nazi Germany kept French POWs as forced labourers throughout the war. They added compulsory (and volunteer) workers from occupied nations, especially in metal factories. The shortage of volunteers led the Vichy government to pass a law in September 1942 that effectively deported workers to Germany, where they constituted fifteen percent of the labour force by August 1944. The largest number worked in the giant Krupp steel works in Essen. Low pay, long hours, frequent bombings, and crowded air raid shelters added to the unpleasantness of poor housing, inadequate heating, limited food, and poor medical care, all compounded by harsh Nazi discipline. They finally returned home in the summer of 1945.[135] The forced labour draft encouraged the French Resistance and undermined the Vichy government.[136]

Civilians suffered shortages of all varieties of consumer goods.[137] The rationing system was stringent and badly mismanaged, leading to malnourishment, black markets, and hostility to state management of the food supply. The Germans seized about twenty percent of the French food production, causing severe disruption to the French household economy.[138] French farm production fell by half because of lack of fuel, fertiliser and workers; even so the Germans seized half the meat, twenty percent of the produce, and two percent of the champagne.[139] Supply problems quickly affected French stores, which lacked most items. The government answered by rationing, but German officials set the policies and hunger prevailed, especially affecting youth in urban areas. The queues lengthened in front of shops.

Some people—including German soldiers—benefited from the black market, where food was sold without tickets at very high prices. Farmers especially diverted meat to the black market, which meant that much less for the open market. Counterfeit food tickets were also in circulation. Direct buying from farmers in the countryside and barter against cigarettes became common. These activities were strictly forbidden, and thus carried the risk of confiscation and fines. Food shortages were most acute in the large cities. In the more remote country villages, clandestine slaughtering, vegetable gardens and the availability of milk products permitted better survival. The official ration provided starvation level diets of one thousand thirteen or fewer calories a day, supplemented by home gardens and, especially, black market purchases.[140]

The two million French soldiers held as POWs and forced labourers in Germany throughout the war were not at risk of death in combat but the anxieties of separation for their 800,000 wives were high. The government provided a modest allowance, but one in ten became prostitutes to support their families.[141]

Meanwhile, the Vichy regime promoted a highly traditional model of female roles.[142] The Révolution Nationale official ideology fostered the patriarchal family, headed by a man with a subservient wife who was devoted to her many children. It gave women a key symbolic role to carry out the national regeneration. It used propaganda, women's organisations, and legislation to promote maternity, patriotic duty, and female submission to marriage, home, and children's education.[137] The falling birthrate appeared to be a grave problem to Vichy. It introduced family allowances and opposed birth control and abortion. Conditions were very difficult for housewives, as food was short as well as most necessities.[143] Mother's Day became a major date in the Vichy calendar, with festivities in the towns and schools featuring the award of medals to mothers of numerous children. Divorce laws were made much more stringent, and restrictions were placed on the employment of married women. Family allowances that had begun in the 1930s were continued, and became a vital lifeline for many families; it was a monthly cash bonus for having more children. In 1942 the birth rate started to rise, and by 1945 it was higher than it had been for a century.[144]

On the other side women of the Resistance, many of whom were associated with combat groups linked to the French Communist Party (PCF), broke the gender barrier by fighting side by side with men. After the war, their services were ignored, but France did give women the vote in 1944.[145]

A recruitment poster for the Milice. The text says "Against Communism / French Militia / Secretary-General Joseph Darnand".

In 1943 the Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL) collaborationist militia, headed by Joseph Darnand, became independent and was transformed into the "Milice française" (French Militia). Officially directed by Pierre Laval himself, the SOL was led by Darnand, who held an SS rank and pledged an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. Under Darnand and his sub-commanders, such as Paul Touvier and Jacques de Bernonville, the Milice was responsible for helping the German forces and police in the repression of the French Resistance and Maquis.

The Sigmaringen operation was based in the city's ancient castle.

Liberation of France, 1944

Following the Liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, Pétain and his ministers were taken to Sigmaringen by the German forces. After both Pétain and Laval refused to cooperate, Fernand de Brinon was selected by the Germans to establish a pseudo-government in exile at Sigmaringen. Pétain refused to participate further and the Sigmaringen operation had little or no authority. The offices used the official title "French Government Commission for the Defense of National Interests" (French: Commission gouvernementale française pour la défense des intérêts nationaux) and informally was known as the "French Delegation" (French: Délégation française). The enclave had its own radio station (Radio-patrie, Ici la France) and official press (La France, Le Petit Parisien), and hosted the embassies of Axis powers Germany and Japan, as well as an Italian consulate. The population of the enclave was about 6,000, including known collaborationist journalists, the writers Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Lucien Rebatet, the actor Robert Le Vigan, and their families, as well as 500 soldiers, 700 French SS, prisoners of war and French civilian forced labourers.[146]

The Commission lasted for seven months, surviving Allied bombing runs, poor nutrition and housing, and a bitterly cold winter where temperatures plunged to −30 °C (−22 °F), while residents nervously watched the advancing Allied troops drawing closer and discussed rumors.[147]

On 21 April 1945 General de Lattre ordered his forces to take Sigmaringen. The end came within days. By the 26th, Pétain was in the hands of French authorities in Switzerland,[148] and Laval had fled to Spain.[149] Brinon,[150] Luchaire, and Darnand were captured, tried, and executed by 1947. Other members escaped to Italy or Spain. The Vichy regime was no more.

The Free French, concerned that the Allies might decide to put France under administration of the Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories, strove to establish quickly the Provisional Government of the French Republic. The first action of that government was to re-establish republican legality throughout metropolitan France.

The provisional government considered the Vichy government to have been unconstitutional and all its actions therefore without legitimate authority. All "constitutional acts, legislative or regulatory" taken by the Vichy government, as well as decrees taken to implement them, were declared null and void by the Order of 9 August 1944. Inasmuch as blanket rescission of all acts taken by Vichy (i.e., including measures that might have been taken by a legitimate republican government) was deemed impractical, though, the Order provided that acts not expressly noted as nullified in the Order were to continue to receive "provisional application". Many acts were explicitly repealed, including all acts that Vichy had called "constitutional acts", all acts that discriminated against Jews, all acts related to so-called "secret societies" (e.g., Freemasons), and all acts that established special tribunals.[151]

Collaborationist paramilitary and political organisations, such as the Milice and the Service d'ordre légionnaire, were also dissolved.[151]

The provisional government also took steps to replace local governments, including governments that had been suppressed by the Vichy regime, through new elections or by extending the terms of those who had been elected not later than 1939.[152]

After the liberation, France was swept for a short period with a wave of executions of Collaborationists. Collaborationists were brought to the Vélodrome d'hiver, Fresnes prison or the Drancy internment camp. Women who were suspected of having romantic liaisons with Germans, or more often of being prostitutes who had entertained German customers, were publicly humiliated by having their heads shaved. Those who had engaged in the black market were also stigmatised as "war profiteers" (profiteurs de guerre), and popularly called "BOF" (Beurre Oeuf Fromage, or Butter Eggs Cheese, because of the products sold at outrageous prices during the Occupation). The Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF, 1944–46) quickly reestablished order, and brought Collaborationists before the courts. Many convicted Collaborationists were then given amnesty under the Fourth Republic (1946–54).

Four different periods are distinguished by historians:

• the first phase of popular convictions (épuration sauvage – wild purge): extrajudicial executions and shaving of women's heads. Estimations by police prefects made in 1948 and 1952 counted as many as 6,000 executions before the Liberation, and 4,000 afterward.
• the second phase (épuration légale or legal purge), which began with Charles de Gaulle's 26 and 27 June 1944 purge ordonnances (de Gaulle's first ordonnance instituting purge Commissions was enacted on 18 August 1943): judgments of Collaborationists by the Commissions d'épuration, who condemned approximately 120,000 persons (e.g. Charles Maurras, leader of the royalist Action Française, was thus condemned to a life sentence on 25 January 1945), including 1,500 death sentences (Joseph Darnand, head of the Milice, and Pierre Laval, head of the French state, were executed after trial on 4 October 1945, Robert Brasillach, executed on 6 February 1945, etc.)—many of those who survived this phase were later given amnesty.
• the third phase, more lenient towards Collaborationists (the trial of Philippe Pétain or of writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline).
• finally came the period for amnesty and graces (e.g.,. Jean-Pierre Esteva, Xavier Vallat, creator of the General Commission for Jewish Affairs, René Bousquet, head of French police, etc.)

Other historians have distinguished the purges against intellectuals (Brasillach, Céline, etc.), industrialists, fighters (LVF, etc.) and civil servants (Papon, etc.).

Paris 1944: Women accused of collaboration with Nazis are paraded through the streets; they often had their hair cut off as a form of humiliation.

Philippe Pétain was charged with treason in July 1945. He was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, but Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. In the police, some collaborators soon resumed official responsibilities. This continuity of the administration was pointed out, in particular concerning the events of the Paris massacre of 1961, executed under the orders of head of the Parisian police Maurice Papon when Charles de Gaulle was head of state. Papon was tried and convicted for crimes against humanity in 1998.

The French members of the Waffen-SS Charlemagne Division who survived the war were regarded as traitors. Some of the more prominent officers were executed, while the rank-and-file were given prison terms; some of them were given the option of doing time in Indochina (1946–54) with the Foreign Legion instead of prison.

Among artists, singer Tino Rossi was detained in Fresnes prison, where, according to Combat newspaper, prison guards asked him for autographs. Pierre Benoit and Arletty were also detained.

Executions without trials and other forms of "popular justice" were harshly criticised immediately after the war, with circles close to Pétainists advancing the figures of 100,000, and denouncing the "Red Terror", "anarchy", or "blind vengeance". The writer and Jewish internee Robert Aron estimated the popular executions to a number of 40,000 in 1960. This surprised de Gaulle, who estimated the number to be around 10,000, which is also the figure accepted today by mainstream historians. Approximately 9,000 of these 10,000 refer to summary executions in the whole of the country, which occurred during battle.

Some imply that France did too little to deal with collaborators at this stage, by selectively pointing out that in absolute value (numbers), there were fewer legal executions in France than in its smaller neighbour Belgium, and fewer internments than in Norway or the Netherlands, but the situation in Belgium was not comparable as it mixed collaboration with elements of a war of secession: The 1940 invasion prompted the Flemish population to generally side with the Germans in the hope of gaining national recognition, and relative to national population a much higher proportion of Belgians than French thus ended up collaborating with the Nazis or volunteering to fight alongside them;[153][154] The Walloon population in turn led massive anti-Flemish retribution after the war, some of which, such as the execution of Irma Swertvaeger Laplasse, remained controversial.[155]

The proportion of collaborators was also higher in Norway, and collaboration occurred on a larger scale in the Netherlands (as in Flanders) based partly on linguistic and cultural commonality with Germany. The internments in Norway and Netherlands, meanwhile, were highly temporary and were rather indiscriminate; there was a brief internment peak in these countries as internment was used partly for the purpose of separating Collaborationists from non-Collaborationists.[156] Norway ended up executing only 37 Collaborationists.

Some accused war criminals were judged, some for a second time, from the 1980s onwards: Paul Touvier, Klaus Barbie, Maurice Papon, René Bousquet (the head of the French police during the war) and his deputy Jean Leguay. Bousquet and Leguay were both convicted for their responsibilities in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942. Among others, Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld spent part of their post-war effort trying to bring them before the courts. A fair number of collaborationists then joined the OAS terrorist movement during the Algerian War (1954–62). Jacques de Bernonville escaped to Quebec, then Brazil. Jacques Ploncard d'Assac became counsellor to the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal.[157]

In 1993, former Vichy official René Bousquet was assassinated while he awaited prosecution in Paris following a 1991 inculpation for crimes against humanity; he had been prosecuted but partially acquitted and immediately amnestied in 1949.[158] In 1994 former Vichy official Paul Touvier (1915–1996) was convicted of crimes against humanity. Maurice Papon was likewise convicted in 1998, released three years later due to ill health, and died in 2007.[159]

Today, the few remaining Vichy supporters continue to maintain the official argument advanced by Pétain and Laval: the state collaboration was supposed to protect the French civilian population from the hardships of the Occupation. At his trial Pétain proclaimed that while Charles de Gaulle had represented the "sword" of France, Pétain had been the "shield" which protected France.[171]

Munholland reports a widespread consensus among historians regarding the authoritarian character of the Vichy regime and its:

broadly stated desire to regenerate a "decadent" state and society that had become corrupted by an ambient lassitude, secularism, and hedonism under the Third Republic by returning to earlier and purer values and imposing a greater discipline and dynamism upon the industrial order.[172]

Although this claim is rejected by the rest of the French population and by the state itself, another myth remains more widespread than this one. This other myth refers to the alleged "protection" by Vichy of French Jews by "accepting" to collaborate in the deportation – and, ultimately, in the extermination – of foreign Jews.

This argument has been rejected by several historians who are specialists of the subject, among them US historian Robert Paxton, who is widely recognised, and historian of the French police Maurice Rajsfus. Both were called on as experts during the Papon trial in the 1990s.

Robert Paxton thus declared, before the court, on 31 October 1997, that "Vichy took initiatives... The armistice allowed it a breathing space." [173] Henceforth, on its own Vichy decided, within the homeland, to implement the "National Revolution" ("Révolution nationale"). After naming the alleged causes of the defeat ("democracy, parliamentarism, cosmopolitanism, the left wing, foreigners, Jews, ..."), Vichy put in place, by 3 October 1940, the first anti-Jewish legislation. From then on, Jewish people were considered "second-zone citizens[173] ".

Internationally, France "believed the war to be finished". Thus, by July 1940, Vichy was eagerly negotiating with the German authorities in an attempt to gain a place for France in the Third Reich's "New Order". But "Hitler never forgot the 1918 defeat. He always said no." Vichy's ambition was doomed from the start.[173]

"Antisemitism was a constant theme", recalled Robert Paxton. It even, at first, opposed German plans. "At this time the Nazis had not yet decided to exterminate the Jews, but to expel them. Their idea was not to make of France an antisemitic country. On the contrary, they wanted to send there the Jews that they expelled" from the Reich.[173]

The historic change came in 1941–1942, with the pending German defeat on the Eastern Front. The war then became "total", and in August 1941, Hitler decided on the "global extermination of all European Jews". This new policy was officially formulated during the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, and implemented in all European occupied countries by spring 1942. France, praising itself for having remained an independent state (as opposed to other occupied countries) "decided to cooperate. This is the second Vichy."[173] The first train of deportees left Drancy on 27 March 1942, for Poland – the first in a long series.

"The Nazis needed the French administration... They always complained about the lack of staff." recalled Paxton,[173] something which Maurice Rajsfus has also underlined. Although the American historian recognised during the trial that the "civil behavior of certain individuals" had permitted many Jews to escape deportation, he stated that:

The French state, itself, participated in the policy of extermination of the Jews... How can one claim the reverse when such technical and administrative resources were made available to them?[173]

Pointing to the French police's registering of Jews, as well as Laval's decision, taken completely autonomously in August 1942, to deport children along with their parents, Paxton added:

Contrary to preconceived ideas, Vichy did not sacrifice foreign Jews in the hope of protecting French Jews. At the hierarchy summit, it knew, from the start, that the deportation of French Jews was unavoidable.[173]

Paxton then referred to the case of Italy, where deportation of Jewish people had started only after the German occupation. Italy surrendered to the Allies in mid-1943 but was subsequently invaded by Germany. Fighting continued there through 1944. In particular, in Nice, "Italians had protected the Jews. And the French authorities complained about it to the Germans."[173]

More recent work by the historian Susan Zuccotti finds that, in general, the Vichy government facilitated the deportation of foreign Jews rather than French ones, until at least 1943:

Vichy officials [had] hoped to deport foreign Jews throughout France in order to ease pressure on native Jews. Pierre Laval himself expressed the official Vichy position... In the early months of 1943, the terror [Adam] Munz and [Alfred] Feldman described in German-occupied France was still experienced by foreign Jews like themselves. It is difficult to know exactly how many French Jews were arrested, usually for specific or alleged offences, but on 21 January 1943, Helmut Knochen informed Eichmann in Berlin that there were 2,159 French citizens among the 3,811 prisoners at Drancy. Many had been at Drancy for several months. They had not been deported because, until January 1943, there had usually been enough foreigners and their children to fill the forty-three trains that had carried about 41,591 people to the east... By January 1943, foreign Jews were increasingly aware of the danger and difficult to find. Nazi pressure for the arrest of French Jews and the deportation of those already at Drancy increased accordingly. Thus, when Knochen reported that there were 2,159 French citizens among the 3,811 prisoners at Drancy on 21 January 1943, he also asked Eichmann for permission to deport them. There had been no convoy from Drancy in December and January, and [SS Lieutenant Heinz] Röthke was pressuring Knochen to resume them. Röthke also wanted to empty Drancy in order to refill it. Despite Vichy officials' past disapproval and Eichmann's own prior discouragement of such a step, permission for the deportation of the French Jews at Drancy, except for those in mixed marriages, was granted from Berlin on 25 January.[174]

Deportations from France did not start until summer 1942, several months after mass deportation from other countries started.

Whatever the Vichy government's intent initially or subsequently, the numerical outcome was that less than 15% of French Jews, vs. nearly twice that proportion of non-citizen Jews residing in France, died. More Jews lived in France at the end of the Vichy regime than had approximately ten years earlier.[175]