Vichy: Pétain’s Hollow Crown
In 1940, Marshal Philippe Pétain took the helm of a humiliated France. While Vichy endured, many took his silence as evidence of grand strategy – a view bolstered by the client press.
In the summer of 1940 France suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the German army. Soldiers surrendered so eagerly that the Germans could not even be bothered to disarm their new captives; civilians fled southwards in a confused and terrified exodus. It is estimated that about one-fifth of the French population took to the roads during this period; at one point over 90,000 families reported that they had lost children in the chaos. The government was also confused, frightened and on the run. In three weeks it moved from Paris to Bordeaux to Clermont Ferrand, finally coming to rest in Vichy, a depressing spa town in the Auvergne. On June 16th the prime minister, Paul Reynaud, resigned and was replaced by Philippe Pétain an 84-year-old First World War field marshal. Pétain’s elevation was confirmed when the National Assembly voted by a majority of 468 to 80, to give him full powers. The Third Republic, the constitutional regime under which France had been governed since 1875 was now dead, replaced by ‘l’etat francais’.
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