What was life like in Vichy France during World War 2?

Answer 1

This question is a bit broad, but maybe a question about "life" should start with food. Food was a serious issue, b/c there were serious shortages. The Vichy gov't instituted a rationing system to keep the prices down. People who lived through this time say that food was an overriding concern for them. It was very difficult to get meat, for instance, especially if you lived in the city. Country people were luckier, being closer to the source of food; there was a thriving black market, and some farmers made a lot of money. Other people went for barter systems, sending, for instance, clothing to their relatives in the country, in exchange for food which was more abundant there. The Vichy gov't, under Marshal Petain, was under the thumb of the Germans but tried not to make this too obvious. They instituted a program called the National Revolution, the idea being that France had turned morally degenerate (through the influence of, among others, Jews and Communists) and that was why it had lost the war; and the National Revolution was meant to bring back moral purity and strength and traditional values. I don't know what all the features of this "revolution" were, but one major one was youth camps; I think they were a sort of toned-down reflection of the Hitler Youth, with French national pride (and no doubt some racism and chauvinism) in place of Nazi ideology. Vichy was essentially a fascist government; Petain as "Head of State" had the powers of a dictator, though I don't think he used them for any flagrant abuses; he was given the right to write a new constitution, but never got around to it! The ideology of his government was very much a fascist, hyper-nationalist one; a little strange for a defeated nation, but it seems to have been something that Vichy France clung to as a way of restoring pride. The police situation under Vichy is probably the one I'm the least qualified to address, but I'll give a stab at it... I know this: Vichy collaborated in the arrest and deportation of Jews. The S.S. were around, doing their work, but there was also the Milice, the French "special police", who were feared and hated by their fellow Frenchmen (and many of whom got lynched after the liberation); they pursued and arrested both Jews and resistance fighters. Also, in the latter part of the war, able-bodied men of certain ages (mostly young men I think) were drafted by the Germans into "Service Travail Obligatoire"--basically means forced labor--and sent to Germany to work in armaments factories. I hope putting all this together gives you some picture of what life must have been like. For many people it was a time of "every man for himself"; for everyone, I think, it was when your true character came out. You could get rich on the black market or by collaborating with the Germans and the Milice, informing on your neighbors, you could focus on strategies for getting more food than the next guy, you could be a good citizen and revere Petain and be safe, you could risk your life for what you believed in, either joining the Maquis or an underground resistance network, or one of the rescue networks that hid and protected Jews. People probably didn't talk as much as they used to; you didn't know what your neighbor was involved in!

Answer 2

After the defeat of France in 1940 most people tried to return to living as they had done before the war. However, Germany demanded all kinds of goods from France at bargain prices - just about everything from foodstuffs to tanks. Some - the collaborators - were willing to oblige. So the French had to work hard for their new masters. Many worked badly and very unwillingly. As a result, in 1943 the Germans started to deport a growing number of skilled Frenchmen to Germany, to work under direct German supervision in German factories. This did more than anything else to boost the resistance, as many young men decided to fight in France rather than work in Germany. The majority of French Jews were handed over to the Nazis and deported to the death camps. Some were hidden by French friends. In some ways the years 1940-44 were traumatic. Some people whom nobody would ever have expected to collaborate did so, and a handful who might have been expected to collaborate resisted. There was also a very nasty side to the liberation of France: a number of unscrupulous people 'framed' personal enemies as collaborators and shot them. After the war, France fought two colonial wars - one in Vietnam (1946-54) and the other in Algeria. This to some extent delayed postwar reconstruction, but now France is one of the most prosperous countries in Europe, though not without its problems.

Answer 3

Vichy France, or the Vichy regime was the French government of 1940-1944 during the Nazi Germany occupation of World War II, based at and named after the town of Vichy. It started when the parliament, except for 80 of its members, gave full power to Philippe P

Answer 4

I read an honours thesis written by Meredith smith who details quite a lot of information on this subject; I'll include a link at the bottom. This basically summarizes it. It might also be worth looking at writers such as Julian Jackson, who wrote France - The Dark Years (1940 - 1944) and Agnes Humbert and Richard Vinen, both of whom collected extensive memoirs from contemporary and modern sources. Other VERY informative sources of information on this particular subject include Henri Drouot, a contemporary who details much of day-to-day life in France, and Fabre-Luce, who detailed more specific details of his own home city. This summary is very condensed, intended only to give you a brief outline of the situation. Many factors are under-emphasised, and i don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I just so happen to be doing research on it for a book, so here you go.

Firstly, your question depends very much on when during the war. Once the allies declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland, the French were considered an integral part of the allied plan (obviously). They had a potent military force, and kept the Nazi forces hemmed into a geographically disadvantageous position. The allied forces (including the French) were optimistic as to the outcome of any upcoming battle with Germany as France had both its army and some of the British army divisions under its control. French society was therefore not much unlike British society had been in the initial stages of the war - worried, but unaware, of the upcoming war and the atrocities it would be peppered with.

However, Germany won this battle (the battle for France) in six weeks, due to a combination of skill, speed and luck in the form of both the French using out-dated military strategy and risky German strategy that involved moving a large chunk of their panzer division forces straight through the Ardennes to cut off the French supply lines whilst distracting French forces on the Maginot line, a traceable line of defenses down the eastern border of the country which the French had spent several years between 1930 - 1937 fortifying. This strategy was NOT called the sickle-cut, but was referred to as such, and was successful due to the elements of Blitzkrieg tactics. The French army was cut off from its supplies and reinforcements, and although many of the British were evacuated before the Germans occupied France, the defeat was none-the-less devastating to morale and stratagem. After this point (the battle for France was concluded on the 22nd of June, 1940, when an armistice was signed) France was under German occupation. This completely overturned French society in several ways, the most important factors to consider being political, social and economical.

Perhaps most obviously, it is important to point out that the German forces were not to be relied upon to keep French interests high on their priorities. The French economy was left broken by the Nazi acquisitions, as everything, from leather to petrol and food to tobacco, was taken to be used by the German forces. The French people were very often poverty-stricken, unless they were originally wealthy and/or collaborated with the Axis regime, and parallels can be drawn between occupied France and the American great depression after the 1929 Wall Street crash - mainly with food and employment. Long queues for food were expected, as was poor quality of life and a lack of proper employment. The Germans introduced rationing to the French, which whilst it wasn't unspeakably unfair, it did not fulfil the average adult's daily income of calories. As such, a black market of goods dominated much of France during the occupation, characterised by extortion and secrecy, being supported by sympathetic rural roots (farms and the like). Another key feature was how cars were acquiesced by the Germans - Henri Drouot pointed out how 'unnaturally quiet Paris was', a result of the German imposition of car permits. Only 7000 cars were allowed on the roads of Paris, for example. Businesses that didn't collaborate with the Nazis faced much limitation and restriction from the Germans, including harassment and violence, although collaboration was common, if not by at least nigh all French, then by a clear majority. Things such as coal and food became immensely valuable, especially due to the unnaturally cold winters of 1941 and 1942. The French sought to substitute many of the items the Germans had taken from them, including tobacco substitutes and even alternative soles to shoes.

The political situation in France has been the source of much debate in historical circles over the years, centring on revisionist and traditional views of French Government, and those that were affected by it. The traditionalist historical argument was the Gaullist one - in which the French resisted the Nazis as a generic consensus, and only a few 'traitors' sought to abide by the Nazi occupation's rules. However, this is untrue, as over the years since the end of the war, historians found much evidence from both contemporary sources and physical evidence around France that the majority of France sought to collaborate with the Nazis. Indeed, there were even cases of conflict between the French and the allies, for example the Lebanon campaign, and the fighting that arose when the French refused to sink their own navy when the Nazis occupied them. On a more personal level, though, in urban areas collaboration was to be expected, because of the high levels of contact between the French and the Germans. One did not openly support the Nazis, for fear of being vilified by neighbours and family, but it was simply easier, cleverer and more importantly safer to comply than to resist. There are even cases of women taking advantage of a German soldier's interests in order to gain something in return, like proper food and clothing. the romantic image of a country characterised by the fabled resistance is groundless - the resistance was small, did very little to destabilise the Nazis and even did much to lose the support of the general public, as often the consequences of their work proved more troubling than the initial problem itself. This isn't to say there was no resistance - the Free French was a branch of the army which broke away from Vichy forces (Vichy government was installed after the fall of the Third Empire - when the Nazis occupied France, and remained extremely co-operative to German forces throughout the war) that gained potency after the Lebanon Campaign, but in essence it was a rag-tag group based on an idea, not on proper planning and co-ordination. Resistance took the form of dissent for most, for example hiding Jews from the Nazis and perhaps assassination of relatively low-key German Officers.

On the subject of anti-Semitism, the French have been detailed several times to have assisted the Nazis voluntarily and sometimes independently. There were several concentration camps within France, most notable Drancy, through which most Holocaust victims or survivors passed through on their way to Auschwitz. When the Nazis occupied France, a Nazi Ordinance was passed which declared that all Jews had to declare themselves. This 'filling system' was then passed on to the Gestapo, who made several raids such as the one on 11th arrondissement in Paris, 21st September 1941.

All in all, French society during the Nazi Occupation has been labelled as many things, from defiant resistance to romantic chivalry. However, the truth was quite different - an often brutal day-to-day struggle for survival, in which the average French person sought simply to keep their head down, obey the Nazis, and stay alive.

Answer 5

same for all Jews in ww11