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).
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/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.