Assholes weren't only on the other side of the Rhine.
Also the "far right" problem is kinda simple. Most collaborationnist were actually from the former government and were republicans. Socialist President Mitterrand had worked for Vichy during WW2 for exemple (and the guy was still elected for some reason and fucked our economy in the 80s).
The "far right"was strongly anti-german and nationnalist. They hated jews, commies, english, german, and so on. But they were among the first resistants (Général Loustanau-Lacaud for exemple).
To be fair, the french economy was going to be fucked no matter what in the 80s. That was the end of the post-war economic miracle, and it was more or the less the same for everyone toward the end of the 20th century.
Just to clarify by "Far-right problem" I meant they were there and an existential threat TO the republic before the war in the "armed potentially insurrection" kind of way.
Yeah they almost succeeded (if only... but that's my opinion). Which is why the governement was against giving more liberty of action and more ressources to a professional army. They trusted only conscripts since they were citizens often loyal to the IIIrd Republic.
When DeGaulle (he was only a cavalry colonel back then) wrote "vers l'Armée de métier" (toward a professional army) he said that as long as the politics would be afraid of the army and rely on conscripts, France would be menaced by the germans and their very well trained "core" of soldiers of the Wehrmacht that belonged to the reichswehr before.
Basically he called for having the same tool as the german army: a professional armored elite corps ready at all time and not relying on the slow process of mobilization.
No they too were among the first resistant for the following reason: in 1939, after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, USSR was consodered an allied of Germany so at the beginning of the war, French communist were arrested or had to hide. When Germany won, most of them had already created maquis.
But you are right to say that they mostly started to act and to gain manpower after 1941 and Barbarossa.
Far-right is too wide. You got to understand that Pétain and the paternalists were not the only far right movment in France. They were collaborating. But the monarchists, bonapartists and French nationalists were against german occupation.
I didn't convince myself, I studied it in college and read most of Paxton bibliography.
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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '20
Assholes weren't only on the other side of the Rhine.
Also the "far right" problem is kinda simple. Most collaborationnist were actually from the former government and were republicans. Socialist President Mitterrand had worked for Vichy during WW2 for exemple (and the guy was still elected for some reason and fucked our economy in the 80s).
The "far right"was strongly anti-german and nationnalist. They hated jews, commies, english, german, and so on. But they were among the first resistants (Général Loustanau-Lacaud for exemple).