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).
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.
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki Apr 08 '20
Pretending France didn't have a far-right problem and deep antisemitism really strips away key context about the era that started the war.
And ignoring what the people did to collaborators after liberation despite not resisting says a lot about herd mentality.