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  But that would soon be the least of her worries.

  A NEW ORDER

  Even before most refugees could return to their homes, the Vichy government was moving rapidly to assert its authority and to take the country on a different path. Within days of being established, it started to enact restrictive laws concerning various “undesirables” that emulated those of Germany. It promptly adopted foreign policies that aligned France more closely with Germany and distanced her from her former close ally Great Britain. And in a quest to rally national unity around the regime, Vichy launched propaganda campaigns against de Gaulle, the Free French, and the British who were continuing the war.

  Beginning just days after Vichy received its sweeping powers, a succession of laws were enacted that were explicitly nationalist and anti-Jewish. On July 12, the regime ordered that only those individuals with a French father could be a member of a minister’s cabinet. A few days later, this policy was extended to public servants and teachers, and subsequently to dentists, doctors, pharmacists, and lawyers. On July 22, the government announced that it was reviewing the status of citizenship of those who had been naturalized since 1927—a measure that would disproportionately affect Jews. On August 13, secret societies were banned, a measure aimed at Freemasons, who were viewed as part of a wider “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.” Public servants had to swear that they had never belonged to any such group.

  Driven by both Nazi policy and homegrown anti-Semitism, a series of measures was enacted that progressively stripped Jews of their rights. On August 17, Jews who had fled to the southern zone were barred from crossing the demarcation line into the occupied zone. On August 27, the government repealed a decree that barred publication of material inciting racial hatred. Collaborationist newspapers were thus free to express anti-Semitic vitriol. Au Pilori (literally, “to the pillory”) ran a series of articles in August on the theme of “The Jews must pay for the war or die.”

  On September 27, the Germans ordered that a census of the occupied zone be taken to obtain a full accounting of its Jewish population. Jews were obliged to register with the authorities, to carry specially marked identity cards that read Juif for men or Juive for women, and Jewish-owned businesses had to display a placard identifying themselves as such. The explanation offered for the ordinance on the front page of Le Matin was: “For some time, the Jews who have returned to Paris and other large centers are showing themselves to be particularly arrogant. They seem to have no conscience whatsoever of their heavy responsibility in the events that have led France to catastrophe … The ordinance … is to control their activity.”

  These actions were preludes to a sweeping French law, the Jewish Statute (Statut des Juifs) of October 3, that both defined Jewishness (any person who had three Jewish grandparents, or who was married to a Jew and had two Jewish grandparents) and barred French Jews from a host of professions, including holding public office; teaching; being officers in the military; editing or managing newspapers, magazines, or other periodicals (except scientific ones); directing, producing, or distributing films; or working in theater production or radio.

  The new regulations upended the Monod household. Although an atheist, Odette was fully Jewish under the law. Indeed, her mother, Berthe Buna Zadoc-Kahn, was the daughter of Zadoc Kahn, who had been chief rabbi of France. The twins were not considered Jewish on account of their father’s Protestant pedigree, but the census ordered by the Germans applied to Odette and the members of her family who remained in France. They were to register by October 20 with the deputy prefect of the arrondissement in which they lived, and to disclose their home address, nationality, place and date of birth, marital status, profession, and how long they had continuously stayed in France.

  Almost 150,000 people in the greater Paris area complied, about 90 percent of the estimated Jewish population, of which slightly more than half were native French citizens. Odette’s mother and her sister Lise declared themselves to the authorities. Jacques even had to register with the authorities as the spouse of a Jewish person.

  The anti-Jewish measures multiplied. In early October, the government authorized prefects to arrest and intern “any foreigner of the Jewish race,” and Algerian Jews were stripped of the French citizenship that had been granted them since 1870. In order to exclude further Jewish (as well as British) influence on French culture, the German Propaganda Ministry compiled a list of more than two thousand works by 842 authors for French publishing houses to purge. The publishers cooperated by promptly withdrawing Freud, Einstein, Brecht, Mann, Malraux, Aragon, and even Shakespeare.

  All of these acts were dramatic reversals from France’s prewar objections to the persecution of Jews within Germany. France had welcomed refugees from the Nazi purges and from other countries where Jews were oppressed, and had allowed them to live and work freely. But now there was no outcry. Of course, with the press and public gatherings controlled by the Germans and Vichy, there were no permitted means of public demonstration. It was also the case that Jews made up less than 1 percent of the French population. Given the general populace’s burdens in the aftermath of the country’s collapse, the anti-Jewish campaign was of lesser concern to most French, and heartily welcomed by some.

  Camus, however, was outraged. He wrote Francine, “All the Jews are being thrown out of our office, even those who have returned from fighting the war.” He felt that journalism was becoming dishonorable, because of both the new regulations and the propaganda that the newspaper was publishing. He declared, “So I am going to choose another profession,” and asked Francine to look into obtaining some land to farm in Algeria.

  The poisonous atmosphere had thwarted his own writing. He had resumed work on his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, but could not find the fire that he needed. “I have no joy, not even in writing,” he wrote a friend. The prospects for publication of his essay, or of his novel and play, were very dim. “I don’t plan to publish anything in France for many years,” he said, then added sarcastically, “apart from praise of the family.”

  Limited to expressing privately his support for his Jewish colleagues, he wrote to a college friend from Algiers who had introduced him to Francine and who was stripped of her teaching post. Camus also wrote to Irène Djian, another Jewish friend: “All of this is particularly unfair and particularly abject, but I want you to know that the thing is not looked upon with indifference by those not directly involved. In other words, this is the time to show solidarity with you … This is what I am saying and what I will say each time it is necessary: Let the wind pass, it cannot last, it will not last if each one of us in his place just calmly affirms that this wind smells bad.”

  TRAITORS?

  As it was promulgating one discriminatory law after another, Vichy was also waging a propaganda war against de Gaulle, his Free French movement, and their British backers. Vichy acted swiftly to discredit de Gaulle. On August 3, a military tribunal in Clermont-Ferrand convicted de Gaulle in absentia of treason and desertion in wartime, stripped him of his rank, and sentenced him to death. Those who joined de Gaulle were thus following not merely a renegade general but a condemned traitor.

  With respect to Britain, Vichy’s purpose was to rally national unity by laying blame elsewhere for France’s present misfortune. It was also a calculated move based on the expectation that Britain would soon fall to Germany, and the belief that distancing France from her former ally would curry favor with the victor. Indeed, some such as Laval openly hoped “ardently that the British would be defeated” and asserted that “France had suffered too often as a result of British dishonesty and hypocrisy.”

  Laval, Pétain, and other Vichy ministers capitalized on recent painful events to rouse anti-British sentiment. The evacuation at Dunkirk, for example, was portrayed as the British abandonment of France and a catalyst to her defeat. Fresher still was the outrage over the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir in Oran, Algeria. While undertaken to preempt the use of the fleet against th
em, it was condemned as an act of utmost treachery. Laval declared, “France has never had and never will have a more relentless enemy than Great Britain. All of our history attests to it.”

  Britain’s role in carrying out a joint operation to Dakar with de Gaulle and the Free French was reported as yet further evidence of British “perfidy.” To have both enabled de Gaulle—who was described in the press as the “ex-Frenchman” and the “ex-general traitor”—to lead the operation against a French territory, and for the British to have participated directly, was an act of “horrifying impudence.”

  Churchill backed the Dakar mission, dubbed Operation Menace, because the British wanted to capture or neutralize what remained of the French naval forces in order to reduce the threat to its navy. Dakar was a major port with a number of Vichy vessels based there. De Gaulle thought that he could persuade Vichy forces in French West Africa to join his Free French forces, particularly in the face of a large Allied task force. If, however, de Gaulle could not convince Dakar to come over to the Free French, then the plan was to take the port by force.

  The operation did not unfold as de Gaulle had hoped. The Allies dropped leaflets on the city and sent a landing party under a white flag, but the High Commissioner and Vichy forces did not yield to his appeals. The landing party was fired upon. Shells and torpedoes were then exchanged between the Allied ships and Vichy cruisers, submarines, and coastal batteries. Not wanting to pit Frenchman against Frenchman (many of his troops knew or even had relatives among the Vichy sailors they faced), de Gaulle called off a landing assault and left the rest of the operation up to the British. Over the course of three days, the British ships engaged the Vichy fleet and shore batteries. Each side inflicted substantial damage on the other, with two Vichy submarines sunk. The Allied task force then withdrew without taking the port.

  The operation was an embarrassing setback for de Gaulle and for Churchill, but it was a bonanza for Vichy propagandists. They had shown that de Gaulle was unwelcome and impotent, and that Vichy forces could repulse an attack by France’s former ally. Moreover, as a reprisal, Vichy launched two bombing missions on British-owned Gibraltar.

  Pétain publicly congratulated the High Commissioner in Dakar:

  France follows your resistance to the partisan betrayal and British aggression with emotion and confidence. Under your authority, Dakar offers an example of courage and fidelity.

  All of metropolitan France is proud of your attitude and the resolve of the forces that you command.

  As for de Gaulle and Britain, Radio Française snarled: “By the will of the traitor de Gaulle, the blood of our sailors and soldiers is shed in Dakar. Let us remember!”

  With the battle at Dakar, Vichy was estranged further from France’s former ally, and acted in a manner that was more like that of an ally of the Reich. These movements were confirmed in a radio address on October 10, in which Pétain outlined the elements of the “New Order” and the “National Revolution” he wished to bring about in France. Pétain blamed France’s defeat not only on the military but also on the weaknesses and defects of the former political regime. The new regime, Pétain explained, “must free itself of traditional friendships and enmities.” The marshal declared that France was prepared to pursue “international collaboration” in all fields “with all of its neighbors.” Turning to Germany specifically, he elaborated: “She knows besides that, whatever the political map of Europe and the world may be, the problem of Franco-German relations, milked so criminally in the past, will continue to determine her future.” Pétain said that after its victory, Germany can choose between “a traditional peace of oppression” and “a new peace of collaboration.”

  If there was any confusion or doubt about the direction in which Pétain’s line of reasoning was taking France, it was shortly made plain. In late October, Hitler went on a rare diplomatic trip on which he was to meet with Francisco Franco of Spain and Benito Mussolini of Italy. One aim of the trip was to secure agreements that would further isolate Great Britain in the war. Hitler had some bargaining chips in the form of the respective territorial concerns of Spain, Italy, and France in Africa, and possible interests in Britain’s holdings once it was defeated. As the recent battle at Dakar attested, France had a potential role to play in Hitler’s plans.

  So, on October 22, Laval was summoned to meet Hitler at Montoire, near Tours, as the Führer was on his way to the Spanish border. Laval labeled France’s declaration of war on Germany a crime, and explicitly proposed collaboration between the two countries. In order to further explore the substance of that collaboration, it was suggested that Pétain could meet with Hitler on his return trip on October 24. Pétain had sought such a face-to-face meeting for some time and went to Montoire. The meeting was not announced beforehand in the press.

  The two men met in front of Hitler’s train in the Montoire station and then talked for an hour and a half in Hitler’s car. Hitler was reported to have told the marshal, “I know that personally you did not want war and I regret meeting you in these circumstances.” Recounting the British attacks at Oran and Dakar, the latter led by a general who had disowned his country, Pétain indicated that the French territories in Africa were one potential domain for collaboration. After a review of the overall military situation, Hitler expressed his desire for a speedy end to the war and the establishment of a new European community opposed to the British. He explained that he had invited Pétain and Laval to a meeting to ascertain France’s inclinations with regard to this community and collaboration with Germany.

  Six days after the meeting at Montoire, Pétain explained his intentions in meeting the Führer to the public in a short radio address:

  Frenchmen,

  Last Thursday I met the Chancellor of the Reich … This first meeting between the victor and the vanquished marks the first righting of our country.

  I went freely at the invitation of the Führer. I did not submit to any “diktat,” any pressure on his part. A collaboration was envisaged between our two countries. I accepted it in principle. The means will be discussed later …

  It is in a spirit of honor and in order to preserve the unity of France—a unity that has lasted for ten centuries—within the new European Order, which is being built, that I today embark on the path of collaboration …

  This collaboration must be sincere. It must be at the exclusion of all thoughts of aggression, it must entail a patient and confident effort.

  The marshal then added prophetically, “This policy is mine. The ministers are responsible only in front of me. It is me alone that history will judge.”

  A key exhibit in that judgment would be the published photographs of Pétain at Montoire, shaking Hitler’s hand.

  Pétain meets Hitler at Montoire, France, October 24, 1940. Six days later Pétain announced he was taking “the path of collaboration.” (AP Images)

  CHAPTER 8

  AN HOUR OF HOPE

  The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure

  THE VICHY PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN SUCCEEDED TO A DEGREE AS reverence for Pétain stifled skepticism. But Vichy’s larger aims of rallying the country and its colonies to its leadership, of stoking anti-British sentiment, and of destroying de Gaulle’s Free French movement were undermined by three forces in the fall of 1940.

  The first was the Royal Air Force. From July to October, the RAF successfully (albeit narrowly) repulsed the Luftwaffe’s attacks on Britain’s air defenses and cities during the Battle of Britain. Contrary to Pétain’s expectations, four months after France’s fall, Britain was still free and Hitler had suffered a major setback.

  The second was de Gaulle’s successful appeals to a number of territories that rallied to the Free French. In late August, Chad, Cameroon, the Congo, Ubangi-Shari, and Equatorial French Africa rallied to the side of the Free French, followed in September by French Polynesia and New Caledonia.

  The third and perhaps most powerful f
orce working against the Vichy and German propaganda efforts was the BBC. Ever since de Gaulle’s first radio broadcast on June 18, the BBC had been waging a battle of the airwaves, or la guerre des ondes, against Vichy-controlled Radio Nationale and German-controlled Radio Paris, as well as countering the heavily censored, collaborationist newspapers. Every evening since July, French citizens who tuned their sets to the BBC’s “Radio Londres” at 8:15 p.m. heard news about developments of the war in Britain and in Africa—both good and bad—that they weren’t getting from Vichy- and German-controlled sources.

  The BBC devoted a half hour to broadcasts in French, as well as providing several brief news bulletins during the day. Maurice Schumann, another Frenchman who escaped France on the SS Batory, began his regular evening broadcast Honneur et Patrie on July 18, 1940. And from September 6 on, a team of journalists produced the program Les Français parlent aux Français (The French speak to the French) during which de Gaulle made frequent appearances to repeat his call to arms, to assail the legitimacy and policies of the Pétain government, and to announce the growing ranks of the Free French.

  Listeners learned not only that de Gaulle had succeeded in recruiting colonies to his cause, but that the British were not losing the war and were instead making a gallant, defiant stand. The collaborationist Paris newspapers enthusiastically reported the tonnage of the bombs dropped on London each day and ran pictures of various targets in flames. They gave no sense that the tide of the battle had turned in mid-August. But the BBC did. At the height of the aerial combat, the German communiqués reported 143 British planes downed with just 32 German planes “that did not return to base,” whereas the actual totals were 59 British and 120 German planes lost. In fact, German losses exceeded those of the British on almost every day of the campaign through October.