The armistice was signed on June 22, 1940. The country was fragmented. Broadly speaking, a demarcation line separated the northern zone, under German Occupation, from the southern zone, known as the “Free Zone.” On July 11, the National Assembly conferred the title of “Head of the French State” on Philippe Pétain. In official texts, the word “Republic” was abolished. The anti-republican French far right triumphed.
The government settles in the “free” zone in Vichy. The National Revolution becomes the official ideology of the Pétainist regime.
Pierre Laval, appointed vice president of the Council, implemented the policy of state collaboration with Hitler’s Germany.
The blame for the defeat is placed on “Anti-France”: the Popular Front, political opponents, foreigners, Freemasons, and, above all, Jews.
Everyday anti-Semitism began to spread in July, both in Paris and in the southern zone. Far-right groups attacked stores owned by Jews.
Pétain enacted anti-Jewish laws in France without any particular pressure from the Germans: the law of July 22, 1940, established a process to review naturalizations granted since 1927. Among those “denaturalized” were 6,000 Jews. A law of August 16 restricted the practice of medicine to French citizens “by birth.” The same restriction was applied to lawyers the following month. On August 27, the Marchandeau Law, which condemned racist or anti-Semitic articles in the press, was repealed. Anti-Semitic hatred immediately began to appear in the columns of newspapers.
This is the revenge of the anti-Dreyfusards. The French state’s exclusionary anti-Semitism is intensifying. The Nazis’ destructive anti-Semitism would come later.
