In 1942, when the Unoccupied Zone of France was invaded by the Axis in Operation Anton, Maxime Weygand, among others, urged that the Vichy government declare war on Germany and join the Allies (as François Darlan did). Had this course of action been taken, the south would certainly have fallen, but Pétain could have established a government-in-exile in Africa, with the support of Roosevelt, who was not fond of De Gaulle.
The idea is for a set of short stories set in a hypothetical Fourth Republic that uses
Pétain's constitution, dealing with the legislative elections of 1957, the third of the Fourth Republic. The President would be the 90-year-old Marshal Maxime Weygand, who had been elected to a ten-year term in 1951 following the death of Philippe Pétain. The Saar has been annexed to France, and it is increasingly being Gallicized, although the FPTP system means that the Saarländer Volkspartei is still well represented in Parliament. Algeria is causing problems.
I think it's an interesting idea.
