The Spectre of Vichy

Established in the wake of France s military defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany, the Vichy Regime remains one the most controversial governments of the twentieth century. At the Liberation, it was deemed guilty of defeatism and collaboration with the enemy. Its leaders, Marshal Petain and Pierre Laval, were tried for treason. Later generations would condemn its anti-Semitism and its complicity in the deportation of Jews to the death camps. However, in The Spectre of Vichy, Allan Massie challenges us to make a new and fairer assessment of Vichy, as he uncovers its true complexities and considers noble, idealistic intentions as well as ignominious failures and chilling compromises. These dark years were to haunt and inform French life for decades - neither the Fourth nor Fifth Republics, nor the fierce French determination to hold on to its empire in Indo-China and North Africa, can be understood without reference to Vichy. Moreover, Vichy was to define the individuals who would dominate French political life for the remainder of the century - De Gaulle, the hero of the Resistance, who in fact had much in common with Vichy and its founding aims, and Mitterrand, his bitter rival and the country s first Socialist President, who began his career within the government of the wartime regime. Imbued with sympathetic intelligence and a novelist s gift for storytelling, The Spectre of Vichy is a brave and brilliant account of the darkest and most painful moment in the history of modern France.