i know this isn't totally to do with the film but i was wondering if there were any history buffs out there with opinions on this? do u think a collaboration with the nazis was bound to happen? i'm not too sure what i think at the moment, would like some views on the matter.
thanks
My opinion for what it's worth - I think it was inevitable - France had a sizable right wing element pre-war I think they may have very briefly been in power but without a majority. As is the way of things, the supporters of the right found it easier to deal with the Nazi's than with the French Communists. There was also a history of anti semitism, it was less than 40 years since the Dreyfuss scandal which showed anti Jewish feelings at high levels in the military.
Also, appeal of being on the side of those in charge would seem to be very great if you had right wing, witness the scene in the film where they are opening this letters from informants - what are they hoping to gain by informing on their neighbours?
Certainly there were two strands to the resistance, the Communist and the Gaullist and it took nearly four years to get them to unite (via Jean Moulin who himself was allegedly betrayed by a Frenchman)
Have a good time, all of the time
Viv Savage - Spinal Tap
thanks v much!
shareThe above answer regarding the influence of far right and the dreyfuss case before WWII is true.
Let's not forget also that it's the (almost) unanimous French Parliament members (i.e, both left and right members) who gave the full powers to Maréchal Pétain in 1940 after the defeat against the Germans.
By that time, the French army was a mess, France was invaded by the Germans in a month (the famous blitzkrieg!), while Pétain was seen as the hero from WWI (the so-called "winner of the Verdun battle") and the majority of French people saw him as the man France needed.
As we know it, things turned quite differently after a few months and the decision of Petain to collaborate with the Germans and its consequences (the antisemtic statutes, the "German" police...etc.)
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Military defeat in 1940 was probably inevitable - the German army was an unstoppable machine until it finally overextended itself deep in Soviet Russia over a year later. But collaboration? Not necessary, at least not to the degree that it took place. Pétain pretty clearly believed that collaboration would benefit France when the final peace treaty (which he assumed would favor Germany) was signed. As the film notes, much of the Germans' dirty work ended up being done by French officials themselves. This was not the case in most other occupied countries. And for most of the occupation, there were definitely more collaborators than Resistance members (though that stopped being the case during the final year).
There was definitely a segment of the French population (as was the case throughout Europe) that believed in Nazism and thus welcomed the Vichy regime. But for the average French person, collaboration was just a means of getting by during a time of great suffering. Sometimes helping a German soldier meant getting extra rations to help your starving family. It's easy to condemn this now, with the benefit of hindsight and from a more comfortable position, but a little tougher to say what we might have done in their shoes. On the plus side, enough Frenchmen did help to save their Jewish compatriots that a lower percentage of French Jews ended up dying than in most other occupied countries, which is one reason why France now has the largest Jewish population in Europe.
While I agree with most of what has been said in the previous posts (thank you for these balanced points of view!), I would like to bring two very little corrections.
First, Leon Blum was indeed popular in the working class. In 1936, his government, known as the Popular Front, passed much important legislation, including the 40-hour week, paid holidays for the workers, the right to strike, despite its short life. I think all the French will be always grateful to him for that.
However, Blum, being the first socialist and the first Jew to serve as Prime Minister of France, was an object of particular hatred to the Catholic and anti-Semitic right. And the hatred of the conservatist right targetted also other members of the Popular Front, such as Roger Salengro who was eventually led to commit suicide in 1936 because of calumny.
Second, I don't think that Nazism had many followers in France. Anti-German feelings ran deep in the French population, as WWI was certainly not forgotten (nor even 1870). But yes, there was still a handful of fervent "collaborationists" (Marcel Déat, Drieu La Rochelle...) who had a real belief in fascism.
I agree with the previous post: it is difficult to know what we would do under such circumstances. When most "collaborateurs" engaged in collaboration for a number of pragmatic reasons, such as personal ambition, the majority of the French population was simply trying to survive (not necessarily through ugly means, but this could happen too). That is why it is so difficult to "judge" Vichy France, for it is mostly a combination of several shades of grey.
In all the countries occupied by the Nazis, the hardships endured by the locals obviously had a lot to do with how they behaved.
There was definitely a segment of the French population (as was the case throughout Europe) that believed in Nazism and thus welcomed the Vichy regime.Just off the top of my head, in England there was a "Well, this Hitler chap might not be our cup of tea but he's better than Stalin" kind of thinking that was around, Edward VIII gave the royal family fits with his pro-Nazi attitudes. The Austrians held parades welcoming the Nazis in 1938 and in the US, Henry Ford was more than happy to make money in Nazi Germany and was a big anti-Semite as well. share
There was an organization called "The Milice" that was composed of Frenchmen who formed a Gestapo-like organization to combat the "Resistance". At the time of WWII France was undergoing enormous turmoil between Fascist and Communist elements within France. Many people in the Resistance were fervent Communists and many of the right wingers were in line with Petain's collaborationist government. As in real life, nothing is ever black and white.
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