Vichy France

The French state that governed by consent of the occupier and collaborated further than it was asked to. After the defeat of 1940 the National Assembly voted full powers to Marshal Petain, the most respected soldier in France, by 569 votes to 80; the republic was abolished and its motto replaced with work, family, fatherland. The regime governed the unoccupied southern zone from the spa town of Vichy, chosen for its hotel capacity, and claimed to be the legitimate government of all France. Its own programme, the National Revolution, was authoritarian, Catholic, corporatist and antisemitic on its own initiative: the first statute excluding Jews from public life was passed in October 1940 without German demand, and French police carried out the round-ups, of which the Vel d'Hiv operation in Paris in July 1942 seized over 13 thousand people including more than four thousand children. Around 75 thousand Jews were deported from France and few returned. Vichy also sent workers to Germany under compulsion and created a militia that hunted the Resistance. Germany occupied the southern zone in November 1942 and the regime's remaining autonomy vanished. Petain and Laval were tried after the liberation and both sentenced to death; Laval was shot and Petain's sentence commuted. France officially maintained for fifty years that Vichy had not been France. Chirac acknowledged state responsibility in 1995. The regime governed from July 1940 to August 1944. Vichy is a spa town in the Auvergne. The unoccupied zone covered roughly the southern two fifths of France. France paid heavy occupation costs to Germany throughout. Its flag and much of its administration were carried over from the republic.

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