French Presidents Significant Prime Ministers
- Paul Deschanel (1920)Alexander Millerand (1920–24)
- Gaston Doumergue (1924–31)
- Paul Doumer (1931–32)
- Albert Lebrun1932–40) Léon Blum 1938
- German Occupation and Vichy Government Paul Raynauld 1940
- Marshal Petain 1940-1944 Francois Dahlan 1941 to 1942
- Pierre Laval 1940 also 1942 to1944
- Forth Republic(1946–58) Charles de Gaul 1944 to1946 1958 to 1959
- Vincent Arbol (1947–54) Léon Blum 1946- 1947
- Rene Coty (1954–59
- Fifth Republic (1958– )
- Charles de Gaul1959–69) 10 yearsGeorges Pompidou (1969–74) 5
- Valarie Giscard d'estaing (1974–81) 5
- Francois Mitterrand (1981–95) 14
- Jacque Chiraq (1995–2007) 12
- Nichola Sarkozy (2007–12) 5
- Francois Hollande(2012–17) 5
- Emmanuel Macron (2017– ) 6 ?
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A taste of Intrigue The multiple lives of Francois Mitterand by Phillip Short
In 1959 he became the youngest minister since Napoleon Mitterand represented epitomised decadence that sold out French Indochina and was preparing the same for North Africa. Brasserie Lip was where people like Hemingway and Jean Stare to Verlaine and Chagall met. He was shot at by a assassin but it was a set up for political purposes.
Half the leaders of the resistance had been part of Vichy at one time as had de Gauls own ministers. De Gaul the wartime hero gave France back it pride after the Occupation, ended the war in Algeria and took the first essential steps to conciliation with Germany. He projected Frances Grandeur. No one ever used tu to de Gaul or Mitterrand. de Gaul said no to Petain no to NATO no to Britain for the European Community he was a monolith
In 1981 Mitterrand became a popular socialist President and was in power for 14 years. He transformed France into a modern democracy legitimised the Left and with Helmut Kohl pushed Europe to political union with a common currency and reunified Germany and shaped Europe for a generation to come. He was a lapsed catholic maintained 2 homes and 2 families one legitimate one adulterine. He projected Frances imperfection. His ambiguity was his strength and weakness. He had political friends from communists to fascist before the war. He made the system work when the president from one camp had to work with the legislature of another called Cohabitation. His story was not written it was in action.
Born in Jarnac , Cognac country north of Bordeaux. Catholics in a protestant area. where the 16C Wars of Religion were still raw. 1934 obtained his baccalaureate (matric) and went to Paris. 1934 saw 30,000 right wing try to storm Parliament. He befriended African students and took them to visit his Jarnac family home. In the 1930 few believed African countries could rule themselves this was generally not accepted at the time. He had many anti-semitic acquaintances and it was a widespread feeling but he became fast friends Jewish of left wing Georges Dayan from Oran, Algeria . He only became took notice of the situation when the Anschluss showed that appeasement was a failure. Military service was compulsory in France unlike Britain and America and it was now extended to 2 years.
The French army in the 1930 had bourgeoisie officer corps on the one side and cannon fodder on the other. He a soldier and unlike his brothers who were officers saw that France was unprepared for the war and knew the reason. Architects of appeasement and Edouard Daladier were retiring at this stage . The Germans crossing the Ardennes in such strength had a traffic jam that took 2 weeks to sort out , the French General staff disbelieved their own intelligence and squandered the time.
Francois regiment fought with valour and he won the Croix de guerre and became a sergeant at Verdun he was wounded buy shrapnel .
With the defeat 1.8 million soldiers were captured and the Germans kept them believing that peace would be declared and they would go home. He was in Stalag IXA at Ziegenhain. In the camp there was a Jew who when asked said "I am a Jew and so?"but he spoke German and the Germans respected him. As a POW Mitterand lectured on literature subject off the cuff. In escaping he knew to have razor blades and shoe polish for the correct appearance. He escaped 3 times the 2nd time he got to Lorraine where the French couple who owned the hotel denounced him. He finally escaped and went to Vichy where it was safer for him.and he had friend's there. He had a job in the documentation of the French War Veterans Legion. This was later taken over by proGerman elements and later provided manpower for the Milice.
Petain stood for Work Family , Motherland of the monarchist tradition , De Gaul was unknown.Vichy was recognised by the US ,Australia , Canada and about 30 other countries even the UK had informal relations. The French officers corps paraded as though they had won the war. Petainist tracked down Gaulists, Communists who also served as a cover for the launch of the first military resistance networks.
The King of Nazi Paris :Henri lafont and the Gangster of the French Gestapo by Christopher Othen
Free sample 263pg Year ?
The Bonny -Lafont gang. This group of crooks and corrupt cops and fallen celebrities' had been led by the orchid loving thief Henri Lafont and his disgraced policemen sidekick Pierre Bonny. He reigned at his headquarter 93 rue Lauriston. In the gang was the Alexandre Villaplane Captain of the 1930 football world Cup team and the head of the French connection heroin smuggling team. Also Infamous wartime serial killer Marcel Petiot.
The gangs paramilitary unit the Brigade Nord - Africaine , Lafont's Moroccan mercenaries stayed in 74 rue Lauriston.
Note in the Warsaw ghetto you had Abraham Gancwajch a Jew who spied for the Germans till he vanished in 1943 perhaps executed by the Germans when his usefulness ran out. In Amsterdam Dries Riphagen a Dutch Nazi did the same and was a big name in the underworld, crooks and fascist collected a bounty on Jews they arrested. He eventually fled to Argentina where he managed to avoid extradition by cosying up to the Peronists.
The US used Lucky Luciano to smooth the 1943 Sicily invasion. Eddie Chapman who was agent Zigzag.
By 1944 he was the most powerful Frenchman in Paris able to pressure the most senior SS to release prisoners, however this came tumbling down when the allies arrived.
The allies called them the Bonny -Lafont gang and they called themselves the "Carligue" The locals called them the French Gestapo. Henri Chamberlin was a barely literate racketeer, and unsuccessful small crook in and out of prison. The war transformed Chamberlin from a wanted man into Godfather of Nazi |Paris. Bonny was a police inspector. His role in the Stavisky Affair got him front page attention as the investigation sparked riots and he was kicked out of the police for corruption.
They looted Jewish properties on behalf of the German, dealt on the black market, scammed illegal gold deals, stole priceless arts, infiltrated resistance groups and sprung anyone from prison for the right price. They got immunity in exchange for a cut in the profits, by their handler. Maurice Chevalier came to ask a favor. Jewish scrap metal dealer Joseph Joinici had deals to finance.
Chamberlin married his long time girlfriend Rebecchi Arzia and the couple had a son and daughter.
The Abwehr was established after the loss of WW1 by Prussian Officers as an intelligence outfit. At the time of WW2 it was under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and it supplied the Polish uniforms for the false flag attack on German radio in Gleiwitz giveing the panzer tanks the excuse to start the war..Because the Germans lack the manpower to administer the whole country they held the industrial north and Atlantic coast. The Free zone was under Marshall Petain run from Vichy and the Italian held the land near the Alps.Alsace Lorraine became part of Germany. The Germans hoped this plan would sooth Britain into a peace deal and stop rogue military leaders from fighting on in Germany.
Chamberlin knew every sleazy nightclub and gangster bar in the city and Redecke proposed that he be his protege as an Abwehr agent. Everyone working for the Nazis in Paris was about to get the opportunity to get rich.
The Vichy government was ordered to pay 20 million Reichsmarks a day towards German occupational cost and sell to Germany everything that Germany needed.
Criminals would make good buyers and he went to the prison and as a German agent accessed the files of recent fraud cases and he became the "caid" or Gang boss. Some prisoners families paid Chamberlin and were freed.
The Abwehr head did not like dealing with criminals so Chamberlin was sent to Normandy to let the situation cool off. Here he took on the name Henri Lafont. There Colonel Lorscheder asked him to find the Belgian spymaster Otto Lambrecht who was in Toulouse. Chamberlin went to Toulouse with other criminals and asked his underworld friends and kidnapped Lambrecht which closed down his entire operation. This made him a key Nazi player.
The collapsing economy meant that local businessmen were lining up to offload good and the criminals made a fortune supplying sugar, bread, tobacco anything that the public couldn't get. Black Marketeer and thieves who were reluctant to deal with the Germans dealt with Monsieur Henri.
Paris was the holiday place for German soldiers on leave and the music halls and plays struggled to cope with the demand.
In Vichi only people who were lucky enough to have relatives on farms who sent them parcels of food avoided starvation. Chamberlin a citizen of the German Reich was untouchable as a Black Marketeer.
Executed in December 1944 by firing squad with Villaplane and Bonny. This quick execution resulted in many other important collaborators escaping justice and making good careers later.
Dairy of the Dark Years 1940-1944 by Jean Guehenno 1947
Collaboration Resistance and daily life in Occupied Paris
The author was 50 June 17th 1940 after 6 weeks of fighting 84 year old Marshal Petain was appointed premier of France. The Armistice of 22June was in violation of the agreement with England. The foundation of collaboration with the Nazi occupation had been laid.Up to 90,000 men had lost their lives and double that had been wounded. WW1 had left 1.3 million dead and 4 million wounded. In WW1 by the end of 1914 almost all the fellow students from his school were dead.
There was a feeling of shame and humiliation. The loss was through military incompetence and gross deficiency of French military intelligence. Petain ascribed the disaster to lack of military preparedness and decadence of the Third French Republic. Too few children, weapons and too few allies. Petains program was going back to agriculture, craftsmen and old trades unquestioning authority to bosses, but the fruit of their labour was going to the Germans.
For a writer silence signified refusal to collaborate. He refused to contribute a word to be under control of the censors. If any thing only to the underground. The diary is a testimony to the inner life of an intellectual teacher scholar resisting pressure. Defeat could not change his way of thinking. A well known fascist sent him his latest book with a friendly dedication. Find an intense living freedom inside ourselves He had no way of telling the book writer what he though of it. In himself was the France that cannot be invaded. The diary is not quotidian but on Sunday he met up with well known literary figures and they formed what was known as Intellectual Resistance. Lettres Francaises a underground left wing magazine developed. He was not involved in the resistance as he said it was really a youth movement but he was a known public figure and too well known.
He was demoted to teaching junior high classes by the Vichy Education Ministry in 1943. Of 60students there were 2 or 3 informers as a result of the Moral Order, but a resistance group was at work in the class. About 20 were drafted into Compulsory Work Service, not one agree to go to Germany and went into hiding or joined the first armed groups of the marquis in the countryside.
The Crime of Marshal Petain was to make dishonour a temptation for the whole nation. Propaganda portrayed other exhaused from fighting while Patains wisdom had save the French.
Vs and Hs were made out of metro tickets.
Americans in Paris by Charles Glass 2009 free sample 3/6/23
1940 June to 1944 August the 4 years France was under German occupation. Was it possible to survive to liberation day without compromising or collaborating. Nearly 30 000 American lived in France before WW2. The largest expatriot community in continental Europe.
September 1939 the US Ambassador to Paris William Bullitt advised US citizens to leave France immediately. 5000 ignored him and remained. US citizens cultural feeling for France date back to Lafayette fight for US independence in 1776. A year or 2 in Paris was a vital component in the education of many socially acceptable young American's.
Josephine Baker the black dance was not interned thanks to her fame in fact she smuggled documents out of France in her sheet music.
Sylvia Beach attempted to keep her English language bookshop Shakespeare & Co. that had started in the 20s.and was the centre of where writers and artist met. It also acted as a private library, as the American matrons who ran the US library censored books allowed.
Teddy Roosevelts daughter Alice worked for the American Library of Paris. The American Hospitals chief surgeon Dr. Sumner Jackson. A collection of Black American , homosexuals lesbians and bohemians felt freer in Paris that in the more repressive USA. Maurice Chevalier had a Jewish wife.
Refugees from countries now occupied by German fled to France. People escaping Paris in refugee columns on the roads were bombed by German planes Paris was declared an open city and would not be bombed like Warsaw: American were allowed to go unhindered initially. A few US consuls disaboyed State Dept orders and issued visas to Jewish refugees and routes to reach N and S America.
Black American's were not all protected by the US Consul and the Jazz Trumpeter Arthur Briggs was sent to a concentration camp in 1940. Black musicians were immediately banned from giving concerts.
The departing French government effectively appointed William Bullitt as the effective mayor of Paris, but the Germans regarded him hostile to Germany. As a condition of his staying on her asked for police and firemen stay at their posts.
Standard Oils man in Paris William de Witt set the oil stocks alight at the request of the French General staff.
The Embassy issues over 1000 red documents to indicate which houses and businesses belonged to American Citizens. A disgusting sentiment was heard - that at least the Germans would bring order. It was apparent that the German had a blueprint ready from long before to suite conditions encountered.
Italy seeing that Germany would win the war declared war on France.
Arthur Koestler was both anti Communist and anti Nazi and managed to sneak out to Spain.
Alice Toklas and Gertrude Stein survived the war in Paris. Also present had been Hemingway, Scot Fitzgerald , Thornton Wilder and John dos Passos. Also English poets like W H Auden and Steven Spender. Paris was cheaper to live in with freedom to write uncensored and they could drink without prohibition.
James Joyces Ulysses was first published in Paris as US and British publishes refused it. In Vichy de Gaul was unpopular amongst his colleagues as he wanted to continue military resistance in the North African colonies.
1940June a 100,000 French soldiers wer dead and 2 million were prisoners.
Hitler's French volunteers by Christophe Leguerandias.2016 246 pages Free sample 31/5/23
1941 June After the launch of Operation Barbarossa and with lengthening lines of communication in north Africa the Germans formed unit of volunteers taken from non German Countries.
Legion des volontaires francais LVT This was set up by the German ambassador in Paris. Many believed the struggle against communism must take place on home soil with the Pro- German organizational help. These 15000 volunteers Himmler considered trustworthy and took a sworn oath to Hitler to fight to the wars conclusion. Frenchmen from Alsace - Lorraine were forced into various branches in the German army.. There were Frenchmen who fought for Mussolini. There were in France members of the Hilfspolizei ( Auxiliary police) Then French in the Abwehr in plain cloths (German military intelligence. There were also White Russians fighting with the Germans.
1943 the French government funded propaganda to recruit to make up for the losses. Many on home leave found themselves targets of attacks. Colonel Edgar Pusud arrived in Russia as head of the Legion and their main base in Germany was the Greifenberg Barracks. Later on they were integrated into other German units some who objected to this were sent to concentration camps for disiplining. Many would fall in the Battle of Pomerania while other were defending Hitler in his bunker till the end. Most finally landed up in captivity in the Soviet Union.
Life under Nazi occupation: The struggle to survive in WW2 by Paul Roland 261pg Free sample
800 till 1806 Holy Roman Empire.
1871 till 1917 German Empire
Alliances would be made and promises broken with impunity.. Initially they treated the Nordic nations with a degree of sympathy and consideration hoping to perused the Danes , Dutch, Norwegians in the mythical crusade against inferior races, These countries were assimilated into the Reich while France became a German depencancy. Nazi party officials assumed that occupied countries would accept the invasion and displacement of their people without a fight. The Nazis imposed decrees and denied the population rights under international law specifically the Hague Convention of 1899. The Austria the plebasite- Jews were not allowed to volte and when you went to vote you could mark you tick on a big circle Yes or small one No but if you wanted to go into the closed booth your name was put on a black list then the no ballets were destroyed and it was announced that 99% voted for Anschluss.
The Germans moved in taking the best hotel and plundered whatever they wanted.
Austrians no longer had a say in their country and rural unemployment rose, Higher taxes were imposed. Regular work with higher wages was offered in Germany. At Stalingrad many Austrians had been killed and people showed sighs of defeatism.
Forced drafting of spouses of Aryan this was to disrupt the family and destroy the Aryan spouses protection. In Austria Jewish academics even before the invasion were forceג to take lower paid jobs as school teachers. Marriages that offended the Nazi's with the husband Aryan and children baptised some were privileged to remain in their homes so as not to attract adverse criticism.
Sept1941 Austrian Jews were required to wear yellow stars. End
He used his wealth to bribe German official to released potential deportation victims and financed the insurrection that lead to the liberation of Paris and was given his own prefecture. He emerged from the war a hero to some and a traitor to other but alive till 1965
George Alexis Montandon
An anthropologist who proposed pseudo scientific theories of racism.
Between Sept 1941 and Jan 1842 put on an exhibit of "Le Juif en la France" it opened 2 weeks after the second large round up of Jews, and a film version of the exhibits came out in 1941. This was organized and financed by the German military and propaganda, the German Security Service. Interest waned after a few days when the public became suspicious of what the occupying forces wanted convey. The true number of visitors is unknown not the half million that the authorities claimed. It painted Jews as non French and foreign.
Alexandre Villaplane (24 December 1904 – 27 December 1944 He was captain of the French soccer teaam in the 1928 Olympics. In 1940 was arrested for dealing in stolen goods and his skill were brought to the attention of the French Gestapo. He worked with Henry Lafont and Piere Bonny and they used his skills to track the Resistance.
He was involved directly in 10 killing and was executed in Dec 1944 along with
Division of the SS Charlemagne .In the aftermath of the liberation of France they fled to Germany. It had 7,340 men at the time of its deployment to the Eastern Front in February 1945. It fought against Soviet forces in Pomerania where it was almost annihilated during the Est Pomeranian Offensive within a month. Around 300 members of the unit participated in the Battle of Berlin in April–May 1945 and were among the last Axis forces to surrender.
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