Opinion of Petain's Vicky regime

[buritobr]

Marechal Petain accepted the role of nazis' puppet. He became the leader of the Vichy regime.

Do you think that a German direct administration would be more painful to the French people? Or that there would be no difference? If a German direct administration was worse, was Petain's decision morally justified? Or not, considering that his regime sent jews and political opponents to the nazis?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Vichy regime as OK, but the Vicky regime was awful.

[mencken]

Vichy regime as OK, but the Vicky regime was awful.

Truly

[ingemann]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil. Using the occupation to push through a agenda, which couldn't be pushed through without the occupation is treason. As such Petain and his regime was a bunch traitorous pigs.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

The only fact to ask the question in France would inherently give a 'bad opinion' on you...

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil.

Though it's a necessary evil in short term, while more damaging in long term.

[Asian Nazi]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil. Using the occupation to push through a agenda, which couldn't be pushed through without the occupation is treason. As such Petain and his regime was a bunch traitorous pigs.

Yes, this is something a lot of Americans don't understand about Vichy.  Far from "collaborators" trying to do their best to help their people, most of its leaders (and a large portion of French society) were willing executioners, eager to build fascism and happy to take the opportunity to kill.  The same thing happened all over Europe when the Nazis came in.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil. Using the occupation to push through a agenda, which couldn't be pushed through without the occupation is treason. As such Petain and his regime was a bunch traitorous pigs.

Yes, this is something a lot of Americans don't understand about Vichy.  Far from "collaborators" trying to do their best to help their people, most of its leaders (and a large portion of French society) were willing executioners, eager to build fascism and happy to take the opportunity to kill.  The same thing happened all over Europe when the Nazis came in.

Indeed. If one is looking for an example of collaborators, that were actually trying to propect their people, it would be Denmark. Vichy Regima was happy to take this opportunity to force their agenda.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil. Using the occupation to push through a agenda, which couldn't be pushed through without the occupation is treason. As such Petain and his regime was a bunch traitorous pigs.

Yes, this is something a lot of Americans don't understand about Vichy.  Far from "collaborators" trying to do their best to help their people, most of its leaders (and a large portion of French society) were willing executioners, eager to build fascism and happy to take the opportunity to kill.  The same thing happened all over Europe when the Nazis came in.

Elements? Stats?

Maybe removing that only word would help making the post more relevant.

If anything was 'large' it might be the fact that most people tried to live their life the best they could, which amongst the large spectrum of the population that went from staunch Résistants to the most active collaborators, could sometimes lead people to do different kinds of not morally cool stuffs, yeah, but that might be more nuanced than the expeditive way you used.

It was an 'odd time'. Yah know. And I often find the comments from the Anglo world about that to be a bit 'easy'.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

It appears I missed the crucial word.

In every single occupied country, most of the people were not involved neither the resistance nor the collaborators. We may consider their position morally unsound, but that doesn't make them belonging to the same category as active and willing executioners.

And although pretty much my entire family was active in the anti-Nazi resistance, I don't feel competent to judge anybody without being in their shoes. Sure, everybody would like to think of themselves as brave freedom fighters during such occupation, but how can we be sure?

[ingemann]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil.

Though it's a necessary evil in short term, while more damaging in long term.

I disagree Adenauer was also a collaborator to occupying powers, but we don't condemn him for quite good reasons, and I doubt the West German or Japanese collaboration with USA (and UK and France for FRG) was bad in the long term for Germany or Japan. Someone need to run your country and it's preferable that it's someone who care about the country and have a public support behind them.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil.

Though it's a necessary evil in short term, while more damaging in long term.

I disagree Adenauer was also a collaborator to occupying powers, but we don't condemn him for quite good reasons, and I doubt the West German or Japanese collaboration with USA (and UK and France for FRG) was bad in the long term for Germany or Japan. Someone need to run your country and it's preferable that it's someone who care about the country and have a public support behind them.

There's a huge difference between Allied occupation of Germany/Japan and the Nazi occupations during WWII.

[ingemann]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil. Using the occupation to push through a agenda, which couldn't be pushed through without the occupation is treason. As such Petain and his regime was a bunch traitorous pigs.

Yes, this is something a lot of Americans don't understand about Vichy.  Far from "collaborators" trying to do their best to help their people, most of its leaders (and a large portion of French society) were willing executioners, eager to build fascism and happy to take the opportunity to kill.  The same thing happened all over Europe when the Nazis came in.

Indeed. If one is looking for an example of collaborators, that were actually trying to propect their people, it would be Denmark. Vichy Regima was happy to take this opportunity to force their agenda.

Yes some people today try to take a stand against the occupation's unity government, but the cooperation with the Germans saved Danish lives which should be the main focus of any Danish leader, and if the Germans had won the war, we would have been much better off too than if we had let the local Nazi run the show like in Norway

[ingemann]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil.

Though it's a necessary evil in short term, while more damaging in long term.

I disagree Adenauer was also a collaborator to occupying powers, but we don't condemn him for quite good reasons, and I doubt the West German or Japanese collaboration with USA (and UK and France for FRG) was bad in the long term for Germany or Japan. Someone need to run your country and it's preferable that it's someone who care about the country and have a public support behind them.

There's a huge difference between Allied occupation of Germany/Japan and the Nazi occupations during WWII.

Of course, but it doesn't change that it was a occupation and honestly if I had to choose between living in occupied Denmark 1940-45 and even the western zone of Germany 1945-48, I would choose Denmark. Of course if the other choice was Poland 1939-45 or Norway 1940-45 I would choose Germany. The Germans behaved in different ways in different countries.

[Californiadreaming]

Collaborating with occupiers to lessen the negative effect on the population is a necessary evil. Using the occupation to push through a agenda, which couldn't be pushed through without the occupation is treason. As such Petain and his regime was a bunch traitorous pigs.

Yes, this is something a lot of Americans don't understand about Vichy.  Far from "collaborators" trying to do their best to help their people, most of its leaders (and a large portion of French society) were willing executioners, eager to build fascism and happy to take the opportunity to kill.  The same thing happened all over Europe when the Nazis came in.

Indeed. If one is looking for an example of collaborators, that were actually trying to propect their people, it would be Denmark. Vichy Regima was happy to take this opportunity to force their agenda.

Completely agreed.

Also, though, wasn't the Vichy regime more cooperative in regards to the Holocaust than the Nazis demanded? Indeed, I remember reading that the Vichy regime could have saved some Jewish children from deportations to Nazi death camps but chose not to do this because it did not want to "separate" Jewish children from their parents.

[Antonio the Sixth]

lol @ this thread

[Cassius]

Lean HP.

[parochial boy]

Vichy is a nice town, disgusting water though.

I always find it quite funny that the part of France that Vichy is in is one of the traditional bastions of Communism in the country.

[Cory]

A chapter, not an episode, in French history. There's no denying that a decent portion of the French right-wing actively welcomed the Nazi takeover, and saw it as a chance to remake France after "30 years of Marxism".