Who is the vichy government
Laval, originally a deputy and senator of pacifist tendencies, shifted to the right in the s while serving as minister of foreign affairs and twice as the French premier. A staunch anti-communist, he delayed the Soviet-Franco pact of and sought to align France with Fascist Italy.
Hostile to the declaration of war against Germany in , Laval encouraged the antiwar faction in the French government, and with the German invasion in he used his political influence to force an armistice with Germany.
As the premier of Vichy France, Laval collaborated with the Nazi programs of oppression and genocide, and increasingly became a puppet of Hitler. After the Allied liberation of France, he was forced to flee east for German protection. With the defeat of Germany in May , he escaped to Spain but was expelled and went into hiding in Austria, where he finally surrendered to American authorities in late July.
Extradited to France, Laval was convicted of treason by the High Court of Justice in a sensational trial. Condemned to death, he attempted suicide by poison but was nursed back to health in time for his execution, on October 15, But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
After a bitter confirmation hearing, the U. The government sought to promote rural values and peasant culture: popular traditions and folklore were encouraged; the earth was to be considered as a solace, a fatherland, in which French people had to be rooted and with which they had to re-establish contact as it was the essence of eternal France. For this reason, Vichy encouraged outdoor life through youth camps in the countryside Kitson; no date.
The new desirable society required a new kind of youth and youth culture. The German presence was oppressive. For instance, Alsace-Lorraine underwent total Germanisation: subsequently, school lessons were conducted in German; Nazi organisations like the Hitler Youth were introduced; statues of Joan of Arc were pulled down, and berets were forbidden.
It was against this background of fragmentation that Vichy set about implementing its National Revolution Jackson; Youth Youth also played a fundamental role in the creation of the new regime.
In addition to a Ministry of Youth, Family and Sport, it created over sixty organisations that were engaged in training the young in the right values of discipline, courage, loyalty and practical ability.
In fact, such initiatives assigned community work to groups of young people in order to engage them in activities, such as helping those in need, or collaborating with harvesting. These organisations gave basic training for the unemployed between the ages of 14 and Youth groups were heavily imbued with the moralism of patriotic duty and civic service, yet, promised camaraderie and joy Lackerstein; Young men could learn a trade or spend six months in the countryside learning peasant skills.
Patent No. The resolution, drafted by future U. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Art, Literature, and Film History. World War I. Native American History. The German troops occupied the northern half of the country, taking 2 million French soldiers as prisoners of war, while the French government worked from its new base in Vichy, a spa city in the center of the country.
Most nations recognized the Vichy government as legitimate; the U. Meanwhile, Charles de Gaulle objected to the legitimacy of the Vichy government from London, where he began working for the Free French movement.
Was Vichy a fascist regime? The break from the Third Republic came about in part due to the shock and humiliation of being so rapidly bested by the German military, and French leaders were looking everywhere for an explanation for their defeat. That blame fell squarely on the shoulders of Communists, socialists and Jews. Jewish people in particular had been experiencing animosity for decades, since the Dreyfus Affair of the s.
But all the foreign Jews were put into camps, they cracked down on dissent, and it was in some ways increasingly a police state. Did the regime collaborate with Nazis out of self-preservation, or did it have its own agenda?