Thehistoriography of Vichy France, is the study in which historians and researchers in thehuman sciences analyse the regime ofVichy France (which de facto governed the metropolitan territory of France from June 1940 to August 1944), was one of the most debated topics in French historical research during the 1980s and 1990s.[1]
The historiography of the Vichy regime can be divided into three main stages.
This phase is marked by the work of the essayist and academicRobert Aron (History of Vichy, 1954), who focuses particularly on Vichy's relations with Germany, and the sociologist and geographerAndré Siegfried (From the Thirdto theFourth Republic, 1956), who is more attached to the internal functioning of the regime. With hindsight, its main characteristic seems to be to distinguish between a "good Vichy", dominated by the figure ofMarshal Pétain (1940–1942) and who would have played a kind of double game with Germany, and a "bad Vichy", dominated by the figure ofPierre Laval (1942–1944), fully collaborationist.
Robert Aron, like many of his contemporaries, had based himself mainly on the abundant legal archives of the Liberation trials, but he failed to point out the bias in the testimonies for or against him in such a context. With a "soothingPétainism" according to historian Julian Jackson, he had gone to great lengths to appear impartial.[2]
In any case, this production is part of an era dominated by the "resistance myth" which made collaboration the business of a minority in a France which was mainly resistant, if not in action then at least in thought.
The major work of the American historianRobert Paxton (Columbia University, New York) (Vichy France, USA, 1972 and France, 1973) based in particular on German archives, as well as the broadcast of the filmLe chagrin et la pitié, 1969) will reveal to French society, which turns the page of historicalGaullism with the death ofCharles de Gaulle (1970), another face of the Vichy regime.
Paxton's book, which is intended as a response to Robert Aron's soothing work, reveals that the Vichy regime sought collaboration withNazi Germany from the beginning and that the anti-Semitic policy of the French state was not imposed by Germany, but was desired in full autonomy by the French state.
Then began a phase of collective introspection which would lead in particular to the recognition in 1995 by the President of the RepublicJacques Chirac of the responsibility of the State of France in thegenocide of Jews in France (speech [fr] by Jacques Chirac on 16 July 1995 at theVélodrome d'Hiver).
More incidentally, Paxton thus gives substance to the French state's social project (the "National Revolution" and the reforms undertaken within or outside this framework), which will also constitute a fertile area of research for historians in the following decades.
Research into the nature of the regime was also revived and deepened by the French-American political science professorStanley Hoffmann (Harvard) (Essay on France, Decline or Renewal, 1974). He analyses the Vichy regime as apluralist dictatorship, an expression used from 1956[3] which will be widely used thereafter.
This is where the debates about the fascist nature of the Vichy regime began. The broader analyses of the origins of fascism by the French-Israeli historianZeev Sternhell (University of Jerusalem) led him to argue that fascist ideology, or at least a fascist ideology, arose in France from an anti-liberal and anti-rationalist reaction. His broad interpretation of French fascism led him to de facto include elements of the Vichy regime, even though it was not his direct object of study.
Zeev Sternhell's theses were criticized by the "French School", composed in particular of the historianRené Rémond (FNSP),Serge Berstein (IEP of Paris),Alain-Gérard Slama [fr] (IEP of Paris) who believe that republican culture was too deeply integrated into French society.
From a communist perspective, historiansRobert Bourderon (Was the Vichy regime fascist? inReview of the History of the Second World War, July 1973) andGermaine Willard [fr] (History of Contemporary France, volume IV, Éditions sociales, 1980) believe that the Vichy regime was, like other fascist regimes, anadaptation of big capital.
The historianYves Durand [fr] speaks of an evolution of Vichy towards fascism after the weight of conservative elements was predominant at the beginning of the regime (France in the Second World War, 1939–1945, Paris,Armand Colin, 1989).
In this sense other sources include:
The Swiss historian Philippe Burrin (Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI) in Geneva) denies Vichy the qualification of fascist because of the elements that he considers consubstantial with fascism: the project of conquest, the test of war (Fascism, Nazism, Authoritarianism, Points Seuil, History, 2000).
The 1990s and 2000s were marked by the proliferation of thematic and sectoral studies on various aspects of French society under the Vichy regime: the study of state bodies (police, judiciary, civil servants in general), the study of sectoral policies of the French state (youth policy, cultural project, social policy, etc.), the study of civil society (businesses under occupation, etc.).
These studies, based in particular on private archives and in any case unexploited, have made it possible to considerably clarify the life and developments that took place under the Vichy regime. In a context of "repentance" andtransparency, but also because the years had passed, public and private institutions have relaxed their traditional reflex of corporatist defense and gradually opened their archives, even if it meant revealing dark elements of their history. Introspection of the functioning of the French administration was also pushed by thePapon trial in 1997.
These studies clarified several elements on the collaboration and crimes of the Vichy regime.
These studies also raised the question of the continuity of the Vichy regime with the previous regime as well as with the following regimes in terms of administrative continuity, rise of technical power, state control over society, development of the social wage alongside income from work, etc.
Among the main thematic studieson the State, administration and civil servants:
Among the main studies onVichy policies:
On other actors in society:
