Contenu du sommaire

1940 : The red Var, and the white wave, Jean-Marie Guillon. In the Var department, as elsewhere, the beginnings of opposition to the Vichy re- gime were neither early nor unanimous. In 1940, the Resistance was still to be invented, especially since it represented a break with a political tradition which had forgotten the clandestine action and republican insurrections of the previous centuries. Resistance was built up through stages, first in cities and then on the coast. There was no single center : it was formed from distant circles in which Gaullists, Anglophiles, democrats, antiparliamentarians and partial supporters of the Vichy regime coexisted. At the end of 1940, there was still a long way to go for the republicans who had to discover what the Resistance was and for the Resistance, which had to rediscover the Republic.

What kind of control ? Information and propaganda during Vichy, Denis Peschanski. As in other areas, the information and propaganda policy of the Vichy regime displayed a constant authoritarianism but also heterogeneity. Following the first months of bitter conflicts for the control of decision-making structures, three men defined three specific policies : Marion's policy was to structure society, with the prospect of a future one-party regime ; Laval's policy was that of mere control, for better collaboration with Germany ; for Henriot, it was a civil war waged by a desperate police state.

« Once upon a time, there was a French Field Marshall... », Thierry Crépin. The Vichy regime children's press was not of one kind. Although the French State had its heart set on directing propaganda to young readers, the regime did not succeed in really contributing to the development of the children's press. The situation was hardly favorable to the emergence of a new genre which required authors and publishers willing to follow non traditional roads ; plans and aims remained imprecise. The legacy of the period was the rise of young draughts-men as well as the American fashion which was to experience a bright future.

The Militia, Jean-Pierre Azéma. This study of the Vichy Militia is entirely based on archives. The Praetorian Guard of the French State, first recruited among members of the War Veterans' Legion it mobilized up to 30.000 « revolutionaries » often of modest background. Its leader, Joseph Darnand, made it the worst tool in the « Franco-French war », the Gestapo's zealous auxiliary perfectly at home in the structures of the French State, even if it did not succeed in making it fully totalitarian. Thoroughly hated, the Militians carried to an extreme the internal logic of the Vichy regime.

The Caen « Special section », Yves Lecouturier. The « Special section » of the Caen Court was established in August 1941. After several trials of Communist Party militants, with relatively mild verdicts, the cases concerned mostly non political misdemeanors such as animal thefts, black market activities and illegal dealings. Was that because German court martials very quickly took in hand political repression even before the Bousquet-Oberg agreements of August 1942 ? Whatever the reason, Norman judges dont seem to have been very severe towards their compatriots.