The Eighty (Les Quatre-Vingts) were a group of electedFrench parliamentarians who, on 10 July 1940, voted against theconstitutional change that effectively dissolved theThird Republic and established theauthoritarian regime of then-Prime MinisterPhilippe Pétain. Their efforts failed, and Pétain consolidated his regime into theclient state ofNazi Germany now known asVichy France.
Some of the Vichy 80, likeLéon Blum, would go on to be imprisoned by regime, while others managed to join theFrench Resistance, through groups like theFrancs-Tireurs et Partisans and theBrutus network. Several of the Eighty, includingVincent Auriol andPaul Ramadier, would play key roles in the establishment of theFrench Fourth Republic after the end ofWorld War II.
Nazi Germany invaded France on 10 May 1940, andParis fell a month later. Prime MinisterPaul Reynaud was opposed to asking forarmistice terms, and upon losing the cabinet vote, resigned. PresidentAlbert Lebrun appointed MarshalPhilippe Pétain as his replacement. France capitulated on 22 June 1940. Under the terms of the armistice, the northern and Atlantic coast region of France was to be militarily occupied by Germany. The remainder would remain unoccupied, with the French Government remaining atVichy, remaining responsible for all civil government in France, occupied and unoccupied.
Pétain began a revision of the constitution of the discredited Third Republic. This process was completed with a vote of the combined houses of the parliament on 10 July 1940.
27 deputies and senators did not take part in the vote. They had fledMetropolitan France on 21 June, fromBordeaux toAlgiers, on board the linerSSMassilia, and they are referred to as the Massilia absentees. They were considered traitors by the collaborationist government,[1] although they were seen as heroes after the war.[2]
The result of the vote was aconstitutional amendment that created the new French government. The eightydeputies andsenators who opposed the change are referred to as the Vichy 80 (French:"les quatre-vingts"), and they are now famous for their decision to oppose the vote.[3]
Most of the eighty votes against the change were lodged bySocialists orRadical-Socialists.[4] Sixty-onecommunist parliamentarians had previously had their rights to serve as deputies and senators denied to them in January 1940, as theSoviet Union was aco-belligerent of Nazi Germany at the time.[5] Using data collected from the biographies of parliamentarians, Jean Lacroix, Pierre-Guillaume Méon, and Kim Oosterlinck (2023) observe that members of a democratic dynasty, defined as a dynasty whose founder was a defender of democratic ideals, were 9.6 to 15.1 percentage points more likely to oppose the act than other parliamentarians.[6]
The historianRichard Vinen has observed that "the implications of supporting Pétain in July 1940 were not clear. This was not, for all its subsequent mythology, a vote that divided Pétaininsts and/or collaborators from resisters." He highlights the cases ofJoseph Laniel who voted in favour of Pétain's inauguration but was subsequently a leading member of the French resistance and theConseil national de la Résistance.Isidore Thivrier, by contrast, who was among the 80 to vote against, subsequently embraced the Vichy regime and became a member of Vichy'sNational Council.[7]
| Deputies | Senators | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 544 | 302 | 846 |
| Voting | 414 | 235 | 649 |
| For | 357 | 212 | 569 |
| Against | 57 | 23 | 80 |
| Voluntary abstaining | 12 | 8 | 20 |
| Massilia absentees | 26 | 1 | 27 |
| Other abstaining | 92 | 57 | 149 |
| Not voting | 1 | 1 |