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During its first days of existence, the Vichy regime ordered a review of recent naturalizations. In accordance with a law passed on July 22, 1940, denaturalization decisions were made on a case-by-case basis by a commission tasked with reviewing all naturalizations granted since 1927. Examining these cases collectively by quantifying a thousand denaturalization files takes into account any individual variations in decision making. Denaturalization procedures are an excellent field of investigation for observing the relation between an ideological project and its administrative implementation. This article opens a field of investigation that questions the boundary between discretionary and absolute power. It explores the consequences of leaving a degree of freedom to administrations in authoritarian regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the Vichy Regime, beginning in July 1940, the whole school system, from preschool to university, had a great responsibility in the decline of patriotism justifying the rapid defeat in the face of the German armed forces. As Marshal Petain pointed out in his 20 June 1940 speech: "Since the Victory, a spirit of pleasure prevailed over the spirit of sacrifice. People claimed more than they served. Efforts were saved, and people nowadays have been living in despair." The national Revolution the Regime brought about had to help revive the true values of the Nation, founding its activities on Work, Family and Homeland. Therefore, the "undesirables" (Jews, Freemasons, Communists, ...) had to be rejected from the school system and the dissemination of national values had to prevail. As Serge Jeanneret, one of the Marshal's trustees, noted: "Making the Revolution without Schools is as useful as a sand building" (extracted from Serge Jeanneret, La vérité sur les instituteurs [The Truth about Teachers], Paris, Flammarion, 1941, p. 173). From that point of view, all the educational ministers belonging to the Vichy Regime tried to reform the school system – its organisation, its programmes and staff – in order to train a "newman", even if they sometimes fed projects launched during the interwar period. The Communist teachers and the Freemasons were expelled from schools because the 13 August 1940 Law prohibited them from working in the civil service. Registration as not belonging to secret societies was required of the educational staff. The first Jewish status (3 October 1940), then the second (2 June 1941), excluded Jews from the school system. The Act proclaimed on 21 June 1941 introduced a numerus clausus for the Jews (3%) in universities. The 8 September 1940 Act closed teacher training schools for primary staff, which were replaced by a new training organisation. The competitive examination laureates were integrated into secondary schools, passed the baccalaureate and, for one year, they attended a vocational training institute and had to undergo four different practical trainings. They had a three-month period at the vocational institute, a three-month training period in primary schools, a three-month training period in an agricultural education school or a technical school and, for women, a three-month training period in a housecraft centre, and one month's training in a regional sport centre. The Vichy Regime and the Germans also forbade certain schoolbooks. Consequently, they modified the programmes to assert the stronger continuity of French History with Ancient times. This enabled a reduction of the revolutionary and Republican impact and promoted French geography and homeland. Pupils were invited to love their local and national fatherland. That sense of belonging could induce them to remain attached to their home. The veneration of the leader, the morals for duty and sacrifice, the symbol of eternal femininity serving the family were reasserted in the educational culture. At the same time, the Vichy Regime struggled with secularism and supported private schools, giving numerous grants to Catholic schools thanks to the Law of 2 November 1941. The Minister Jacques Chevalier, with the 6 December 1940 Act, restored duties to God in civic and moral instruction programmes for primary schools (those duties had been suppressed in 1923). The Ripert Act on 15 October 1940 allowed the local education city office to award grants to poor pupils who attended private schools. The Jacques Chevalier Act on 6 January 1941 allowed cities to finance equipment charges and operational costs concerning the private schools (and especially lighting, heating and lunchrooms). The 6 January 1941 Law, by welcoming God in schools and asserting that religious instruction could exceptionally be delivered by a priest in educational buildings, modified one fundamental pillar of the French Republican School. With the 10 March 1941 Law, Jérôme Carcopino, faced with such a great number of opponents, demanded that religious instruction became optional and was studied off school premises. he Vichy Regime also reformed school organisation. Jérôme Carcopino launched the main transformations with the 15 August 1941 Act. Higher Primary Schools became modern secondary schools and were linked to secondary education in the hope of weakening them. At the same time, the selection process was reinforced. Primary schooling was divided into two cycles. The first included a preparatory class (for children aged 6–7 years), an elementary class (7–9-year-olds) and a middle class (from 9- to 11-year-olds). At the end of the first cycle, a diploma for preparatory primary studies was created and prescribed as compulsory if pupils intended to go further in public schooling (i.e. additional classes, primary or secondary high schools); but pupils who succeeded in the scholarship examination were exempted from the diploma. The second cycle (three years from age 11 to age 14) ended with the Primary Certificate. In secondary education, Jérôme Carcopino increased selection and, according to the 15 August 1941 Decree, the principle of free access was suppressed for pupils older than 14 years of age. This multidimensional reform had to face two major obstacles that considerably reduced its implementation. First, the war years were not favourable to educational change – the country was partly and afterwards totally occupied after November 1942. German troops occupied a majority of schools. Shortages were numerous and many teachers were imprisoned in Germany. Labour requisitioning progressively affected the older pupils, mainly student and fresh teachers. The Vichy Regime, after the succession principle failed – the principle was established on 22 June 1942 and proposed that one prisoner came back to France and was traded for three skilled workers sent to Germany – decided, according to the 4 September 1942 Law, to organise forced conscription for male workers (from 18 to 50 years old) and for unmarried women (from 21 to 35 years old). The constraint was then accentuated with the 16 February 1943 Law implementing Mandatory Work Service – Service du Travail Obligatoire STO – for young adults (aged 20–21 and 22-year-old men). All these young men had to be registered and the process made people-requisitioning easier. Therefore, they could definitely be sent to Germany. Second, there was a sort of revolt by the educational staff, who were deeply attached to the Republican values and the Jules Ferry conception of school. Indeed, they strove to reduce the scope of the legislation, rejecting the political choices of the Vichy Regime and also collaboration. If teachers, students and older pupils joined the collaborator parties, most of them remained prudent and followed as little as possible the Vichy Regime's instructions. They commemorated forbidden celebrations and listened to BBC radio. A minority joined the Resistance fighters and got involved in the dissemination of tracts and of clandestine papers. They also committed to information networks, escape organisations or fights against the occupiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the recent "transnational" and "global" turns in history have inspired new approaches to studying the French Revolution and the French Resistance, they have made a surprisingly minor impact on the study of French decolonization. Adopting a global or transnational lens, this special issue argues, can open up new possibilities for broadening our understanding of the collapse of France's global empire in the mid-twentieth century as well as the reverberations of decolonization into the twenty-first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a 25 August 1940 telegram, the Vichy colonial ministry ordered New Caledonia to turn over its entire nickel production to Japan. This decision, announced in Nouméa on 3 September 1940, has been interpreted by memoirists and historians alike as a 'camouflaged' military invasion and a trigger for the successful bloodless coup that brought New Caledonia to the side of Free France 16 days later. The telegram's full text, however, suggests an equally important interpretation, one that contributes to recent scholarship arguing for the 'trans-imperial' origins of the 'global axis alliance' from 1931 to 1940. Drawing on Japanese, Australian, American and French archival sources, this article argues that New Caledonian nickel – a crucial metal in armament production – not only helped Japan's pursuit of autarkic empire in the 1930s but also served as a Japanese bargaining chip that helped convince the Germans to sign the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades historians have done a lot to reveal the social and political diversity of the people who participated in the French Resistance. But little has been said about non-white resisters who were among the 200,000 men and women from the colonies living in the French metropole during the Occupation. This article shows that many of them were entangled in the Resistance as early as the summer of 1940 and that they became involved in the most political and violent forms of defiance. Resistance, however, was not a "natural" decision for many of the colonial workers or prisoners, whose daily struggles could bring them into tension with the Free French as well as Vichy. So, if this study aims to rectify misconceptions of the Resistance as an entirely Eurocentric affair, it also probes the complicated relationship between colonial subjects and the metropole during the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arguing that the resistance in France during the Second World War was always transnational in important ways, this piece identifies some of the recent scholarship that has expanded both the temporal and geographic parameters of the French Resistance. It introduces some of the key themes of this collection of articles and underscores the important contributions made by the participating authors. As these articles reveal, we can find sites of transnational resistance by looking at the relationship between the Allies and the resistance, the role that non-French denizens played in the resistance, the politics of cultural resistance, and the circulation of downed Anglo-American aircrews in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the case of the French cultural institute in London which found itself at the nexus of Gaullist as well as anti-Gaullist networks during the Second World War. By analysing the support that the institute's director, Denis Saurat, brought to Charles de Gaulle in the early days of Free France, the article contributes to our understanding of the formation of Free French political thought. This study analyses Saurat's shifting position in the movement, from being Gaullist to becoming an active partisan of anti-Gaullism. The examination of Saurat's networks and politics helps to re-appraise further trends of anti-Gaullism caused by leftist views not least regarding the lack of democratic principles that characterized Free France in 1940–2. Finally, Saurat's anti-Gaullism was also prompted by his refusal to put the French cultural institute in London at the service of de Gaulle and support Free French propagandist, cultural and academic ambitions in the world. Overall this article argues for a reassessment of London-based leftist anti-Gaullism understood not just through issues of personalities and democracy but also through the prism of cultural diplomacy and propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the impact of the Vichy government's antisemitic laws on the lives of Jews from Algeria: From 1870 to 1940 they were classed as French citizens, after which their status was demoted to that of 'natives'; then, in 1943, their French citizenship was restored. Since 1936, the year of the Constantine Pogrom, stigmatization and persecution by the two other main populations which lived in Algeria-Europeans and Arabs-had significantly increased. Following the reinstatement of their French citizenship in 1943, the young Jewish men participated as soldiers in the Liberation of France in 1944-1945. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking back at extreme-right politics in France in the 1940s and 1950s provides new perspectives on contemporary populism. Stanley Hoffmann's analyses of support for the Vichy regime and for the Poujade movement emphasized how populist politics flourished in times when major segments of the population felt thwarted in efforts to have their interests and views represented in government. Attempts to explain populism by the economic or cultural characteristics of individuals are insufficient. As Hoffmann suggested, it is the political failure of parties and interest groups to channel the grievances and demands of the "losers" of globalization into policy arenas that fuels the rise of populism today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on France's policy towards Socialist China in the decade preceding the spectacular and well-studied decision by President Charles de Gaulle to officially recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC). It argues that since the mid-1950s successive French governments discreetly orchestrated a process of rapprochement with the Communist authorities in Beijing. The article demonstrates that, at a time when the international situation discouraged steps towards official relations, the French government used commercial diplomacy as a means to open unofficial diplomatic channels with the Chinese and prepare the ground for future recognition. Relying mostly on French archival sources, this article brings to light evidence of the evolution of French diplomacy's thinking about Socialist China and assesses the rationales behind the French government's growing determination to normalize relations with it. It argues that the intensifying contest among European countries to reach out to Beijing, concerns about the PRC's appeal to developing countries, and an early appraisal of Sino-Soviet rivalry prompted French authorities to work for Sino-French rapprochement, while, at the same time, annoyance at the White House's obstinate refusal to revise its reading of Cold War dynamics weakened France's disposition to fall into line with American demands to maintain a harsh stance towards the PRC. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This review of recent scholarship on the German occupation of France during the Second World War discusses four subjects: the role of the German military authorities, anti-Jewish policy, economic policy, and relations between occupiers and occupied. The review argues that recent scholarship on the German occupation offers a potential complement to the scholarship on Vichy, which has been dominated by a focus on the French. There is, however, a danger of simply replacing a focus on the French with one on the Germans. The review points to the need for more exploration of the intertwined experiences of occupiers and occupied. This intertwining was evident in the economic and industrial realms and perhaps even more so in the social realm, in which significant numbers of French and Germans interacted with one another on a regular basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Education et Societes is the property of INRP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the Second World War, the Vichy government published many of the same antisemitic laws in Tunisia as it did in the metropole. But in Tunisia, the ‘Jewish Question’ also became a question of maintaining control over the French Empire. Vichy racial legislation aimed at the Protectorate’s multinational Jewish population did not only reflect the state’s antisemitic policies; rather, these laws were inextricably bound up in France’s colonial rivalry with Italy. In a colony where French political and economic hegemony had been only tenuously secured in the preceding decades through strategic naturalization, Vichy racial laws presented French authorities with a radically new avenue to consolidate power in the Protectorate; however, they also threatened to upend Tunisia’s economy and provoke Italian intervention. This article explores how the frequently-delayed and often partial application of Vichy anti-Jewish laws in Tunisia resulted from the difficulties of reconciling the aims of economic aryanization with the exigencies of protecting French rule against the pretensions of Fascist Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rescue of Jews in Vichy France continues to receive a great deal of attention. Recently, the justes, non-Jews who risked their lives to assist persecuted Jews, have become an important category of historical inquiry. With the justes arguably at the center of the nation's collective memory of Vichy, a number of groups seeking to better their wartime image have rewritten their narratives to promote the rescue of Jews in their histories. Like the police and the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français, former members of Vichy's Chantiers de la Jeunesse represent one such organization. Even though some Jews were sheltered in the Chantiers de la Jeunesse, this article calls into question the account of the Chantiers' leader, General de la Porte du Theil, and those of some of his disciples, who later claimed that they created an official policy for rescue. Such claims are symptomatic of a "myth of rescue," an emerging trend that posits rescue as the norm for the French population's relationship with the Jews during the Occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the processes of displacement and dislocation for the aircrew that came together in 1940–42 to form the Forces aériennes françaises libres (FAFL). It uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies to examine the background and motivations of the men of the FAFL. It also seeks to utilise current understandings about the French right in examining the political impulses of Free French pilots. The article concludes with some suggestions about the long term significance on French life of the displacements and dislocations of 1940–42. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the complex nature of Vichy France's dealings with Fascist Italy between June 1940 and March 1942. At the heart of the inquiry is a seemingly remarkable volte-face by the two governments. The Italian declaration of war in June 1940 was viewed by many in France as an act of betrayal. By December 1941, however, Vichy and Fascist Italy were engaged in secret military collaboration. The first section focuses upon the period after the outbreak of war, seeking to establish the precise character and parameters of the relationship. The second section examines the reasons for the transformation, analysing Vichy's negotiations with Italy and Germany between May 1941 and March 1942. It suggests that the shift in Vichy's approach was in large part motivated by a belief that the weakness of Italy would compel it to make concessions on a scale that the Nazi government would never even consider. Historians of Vichy have often downplayed the significance of Fascist Italy yet, like Nazi Germany, Italy posed a substantial threat to the integrity and sovereignty of France and its colonial empire. Vichy's policy of collaboration was therefore conceived in trilateral rather than bilateral terms. Cet article cherche à examiner la nature complexe des relations entre la France de Vichy et l'Italie fasciste de juin 1940 à mars 1942. Au centre de cette enquête se trouve la volte-face apparemment remarquable des deux gouvernements. La déclaration de guerre par l'Italie en juin 1940 fut considérée par un grand nombre de Français comme un acte de trahison. Cependant, en décembre 1941, Vichy et l'Italie fasciste s'engagèrent dans la collaboration militaire secrète. La première partie se concentre sur la période après le début de la guerre, et essaie d'établir quels sont la nature précise et les paramètres des relations entre Vichy et l'Italie. La seconde partie examine les causes de cette transformation en analysant les négociations entre Vichy, l'Italie et l'Allemagne entre mai 1941 et mars 1942. L'auteur suggère que le changement dans l'approche de Vichy était en grande partie motivé par la conviction que la faiblesse de l'Italie la forcerait à faire des concessions d'une ampleur telle que le gouvernement nazi n'aurait jamais même envisagé. Les historiens de Vichy ont souvent minimisé l'importance de l'Italie fasciste, mais contrairement à l'Allemagne nazie, l'Italie constitua une menace importante pour l'intégrité et la souveraineté de la France et de son empire colonial. La politique de collaboration de Vichy était donc conçue en termes trilatéraux et non bilatéraux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of all the measures adopted by the Vichy regime, the law of October 3, 1940, defining the status of Jews, is undoubtedly the best known. Yet, there are few scholarly works on the genesis of this law. This article reconsiders the commonly accepted thesis of an “autonomous” Vichy and a first “purely French” Jewish statute, emphasizing instead a Franco-German interdependence. The author argues that the statute was the product of an interaction between certain themes of French antisemitism and the exigencies of the wartime context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented that discusses the book "Vichy et la Shoah: Enquête sur le paradoxe français," by Alain Michel. Topics include the relation of Vichy France to the Jewish Holocaust, the involvement of French political leader Marshall Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Pétain in deporting foreign-born Jews, and the history of the historiography of Vichy France.

Although we have a great deal of information about Second World War French military history, we still do not know everything about the Vichy government's attempt to engage in military collaboration with Nazi Germany. Despite the fact that France was defeated in 1940, the country's government tried to improve the French positions in German commanded Europe. For the Vichy government, one of the most important areas was the Mediterranean region where it tried to maintain the French influence even by offering support to Germany in the hope of receiving some military and political concessions in return. This collaboration had a very important element, namely the establishment of two military units which were to fight by the side of the German forces in Africa: the Legion tricolore and the Phalange africaine. In the autumn of 1942, the Legion was dissolved even before its first mission, but the Phalange participated in the Tunisian fights against the Anglo- Saxon armies in 1943. Despite these efforts, France's position did not improve as a result of which this attempt is considered one of the fiascos of the Vichy regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two obstacles blocked the incorporation of the rescue of Jews in France into the Resistance movement. The first, which can be traced back to the sources of the social imaginary, had to do with the fear of stirring the old demon of the Jewish problem by referring specifically to the fate awaiting the Jews. The second was inseparable from the meaning attached to the Resistance ever since its inception, which focused on political opposition to Vichy and on the liberation of France and never included rescuing those whose lives were in danger. This double marginalization (from the History of the French people as a whole and from that of the Resistance) survived liberation and gave way to three different historiographies: that of the French Resistance, that of the rescue of the Jews, and that of Jewish resistance. The history of the rescue of the Jews in France should be studied through an integrated perspective that leads to thinking about the Resistance as a whole, organized and unorganized, Jewish and non-Jewish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can exclusion and rescue constitute the two faces of a same coin? How did the door slam shut on maritime rescue schemes in 1941? How precisely did Varian Fry and HICEM spirit refugees stranded in Southern France to the new world? In answering these questions, this article delineates and analyzes the sinuous routes that led to the emigration of thousands of refugees from Marseille to the French Caribbean in 1940-1941. It exposes some of the ambiguities of this project-including the comparable conditions of refugee internment in Vichy France and in Martinique-and its ultimate undoing. It delves into the encounters and synergies that the exodus engendered, and explores the perspectives of some of the refugees and Martiniquais whose paths crossed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relief, rescue, and resistance activities of Rabbi Zalman Schneerson and the Association des Israélites pratiquants (AIP) in Vichy France. The rabbi's prior experience in clandestine activities and spiritual resistance in the Soviet Union served as a training ground for the resistance work he eventually undertook in Vichy. Schneerson and his family were able to shelter, feed, and educate more than eighty children during the war, save at least fifty-three children from deportation, and help smuggle at least thirty-five children to Switzerland. That Schneerson and his family survived and rescued Jewish refugees in Vichy France, a regime that willingly deported nearly half of its foreign Jewish population to death camps, demonstrates that he and his wife Sara were not novices in clandestine work. Indeed, their staunch resistance to Vichy antisemitism was largely a legacy of Hasidic resistance to antisemitism under Soviet rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates one of the most successful Jewish rescue networks in Vichy France, the Réseau Marcel, and specifically how its history, and that of its co-founders, Odette Rosenstock and Moussa Abadi, was created within multiple gendered narratives that consistently emphasized his leadership and often silenced or muted her achievements. Based in Nice, the Réseau Marcel which saved over 500 children from deportation, consisted of just three people: its young Jewish co-founders and the local Catholic Bishop, Monsignor Paul Rémond. Although deported, Rosenstock, always Abadi's equal, survived the death camps. After the war, the reunited couple returned to Paris, where Rosenstock became a distinguished doctor in public health and Abadi a successful theater critic. At the end of their lives, the Abadi re-united with many of their hidden children, who in their honor formed a public Association that has played a key part in shaping the history of the Réseau Marcel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers the author's insights regarding his interview with writer Maurice Bardèche. He notes that Bardèche has discussed the War years and was obsessed by the Vichy period which he represents as a morality of play. He cites that Bardèche has displaced, projected and fetishized Robert Brasillach through the founding of Les Sept Couleurs, a publishing venture to reprint Brasillach's books such as "Oeuvres complètes."

Philippe Henriot was one of the most powerful personalities in World War II France. His appointment as Vichy's secretary of state for information and propaganda in January 1944 substantially changed the nature of the so-called battle of the airwaves. From then until his death at the end of June, at the hands of the Resistance, he directed an unprecedented, sustained attack at the team of Free French who had broadcast from London since the summer of 1940 and who had thus far encountered no other Vichy propagandist of Henriot's skill. This article examines the essence, strategies, and evolution of their exchanges across the airwaves and explores how the two sides argued the events of the day and sought to influence French opinion in the final months of the Occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three forms of legal resistance are identified in this paper, on the basis of a socio-historical analysis of the participation of lawyers and magistrates to the underground movement in France during World War Two. First, «resistance despite the law» describes the antagonism between legalism and resistance that should have prevented lawyers from being committed to resist. Second, «resistance in the shadow of the law» depicts how, progressively, the subversive potentialities of judicial professions were discovered and used. Third, «resistance in the name of law» shows how the legitimacy of law was used to justify opposition to the Vichy regime and its allies. This threefold conception, analytic as well as chronological, is an invitation to a more complex analysis of the relationships between law and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of genetically-altered seeds as a political product of the Vichy regime in France between 1940 and 1944. The author discusses the proto-fascist state policies of the Vichy government, the relationship between agricultural biotechnology and World War II politics, and the importance of seeds in providing a sufficient supply of food for the country. Topics include autarky, plant genomes, and genetic modernism. The article also addresses ontology, biopolitics, and the influence of Vichy agricultural advancements on the history of France after World War II.