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French Army Marshal Petain was "Head of State". Like all extreme right-wingers, the Vichy regime had a deep-seated loathing of the word "republic", which it associated with liberalism and socialism. After WW2 Petain was convicted of treason and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Marshal Petain had fought in World War I and was known as the victor and hero of the terrible battle of Verdun, which was won by the Allies (mostly the French) through great determination. Because this battle became to the French a symbol of heroism and the strength of France, Petain himself became a symbol of these things at a moment of defeat for France--so he enjoyed enormous, almost cultlike popularity at first because there was almost nothing else to be proud of just then.

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