Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain, generally known as Philippe Pétain, Marshal Pétain and sometimes The Old Marshal, was a French general officer who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of World War I, during which he became known as The Lion of Verdun. He then served as Chief of State of Vichy France from 1940 to 1944. Pétain, who was 84 years old in 1940, ranks as France's oldest head of state.
André Léon Blum was a French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister.
Paul Reynaud was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany.
Édouard Daladier was a French Radical-Socialist (centre-left) politician, and the Prime Minister of France at the outbreak of World War II.
La Dépêche, formally La Dépêche du Midi, is a regional daily newspaper published in Toulouse in Southwestern France with seventeen editions for different areas of the Midi-Pyrénées region. The main local editions are for Toulouse, Ariège, Aude, Aveyron, Haute-Garonne, Gers, Lot, Lot-et-Garonne, Hautes-Pyrénées, Tarn and Tarn-et-Garonne.
Georges Mandel was a French journalist, politician, and French Resistance leader.
Philippe Henriot was a French poet, journalist, politician, and Minister in the French government at Vichy, where he directed propaganda broadcasts. He also joined the Milice part-time.
The Eighty were a group of elected French parliamentarians who, on 10 July 1940, voted against the constitutional change that effectively dissolved the Third Republic and established the authoritarian regime of Philippe Pétain now referred to as Vichy France.
Canfranc is a municipality in the Aragón Valley of north-eastern Spain consisting of two villages, the original village and Canfranc Estación, which developed with the establishment of Canfranc International railway station to serve railway traffic across the Pyrenees.
Somport or Col du Somport, known also as the Aspe Pass or Canfranc Pass, is a mountain pass in the central Pyrenees on the border of France and Spain. Its name is derived from the Latin Summus portus. It was one of the most popular routes for soldiers, merchants, and pilgrims to the tomb of St. James following the route from Arles to cross the Pyrenees. They travelled from Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, via Somport to Aragon, Spain.
The Riom Trial was an attempt by the Vichy France regime, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, to prove that the leaders of the French Third Republic (1870–1940) had been responsible for France's defeat by Germany in 1940. The trial was held in the city of Riom in central France, and had mainly political aims – namely to project the responsibility of defeat onto the leaders of the left-wing Popular Front government that had been elected 3 May 1936.
Numerous internment camps and concentration camps were located in France before, during and after World War II. Beside the camps created during World War I to intern German, Austrian and Ottoman civilian prisoners, the Third Republic (1871–1940) opened various internment camps for the Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the prohibition of the French Communist Party (PCF) by the government of Édouard Daladier, they were used to detain communist political prisoners. The Third Republic also interned German anti-Nazis.
The Révolution nationale was the official ideological program promoted by the Vichy regime which had been established in July 1940 and led by Marshal Philippe Pétain. Pétain's regime was characterized by anti-parliamentarism, personality cultism, xenophobia, state-sponsored anti-Semitism, promotion of traditional values, rejection of the constitutional separation of powers, modernity, and corporatism, as well as opposition to the theory of class conflict. Despite its name, the ideological policies were reactionary rather than revolutionary as the program opposed almost every change introduced to French society by the French Revolution.
Asasp-Arros is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of south-western France.
Accous is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwestern France.
Vichy France is the common name of the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. The regime was authoritarian, xenophobic, antisemitic, corporatist and traditionalist in nature. Officially independent, it adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany, which occupied its northern and western portions before occupying the remainder of Metropolitan France in November 1942. Though Paris was ostensibly its capital, the Vichy government established itself in the resort town of Vichy in the unoccupied "Free Zone", where it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as its colonies.
Located in the French Pyrenees mountains, the Chemin de la Mâture is a 1,200-metre (3,900 ft) path carved into a sheer rock face rising over 200 metres (660 ft) above the river Gave d'Aspe. Completed by the engineer Paul-Marie Leroy in 1772, the Chemin de la Mâture was originally created to transport timber from the nearby Pacq forest to be used in constructing French naval vessels. The path has since been incorporated into the GR 10, a long-distance footpath running along the Pyrenees from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.
The zone libre was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered by the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain based in Vichy, in a relatively unrestricted fashion. To the north lay the zone occupée in which the powers of Vichy France were severely limited.
The Aspe Valley is a valley in the French part of the Pyrenees, department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
The Government of Vichy France was the collaborationist ruling regime or government in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. Of contested legitimacy, it was headquartered in the town of Vichy in occupied France, but it initially took shape in Paris under Maréchal Philippe Pétain as the successor to the French Third Republic in June 1940. Pétain spent four years in Vichy and after the Allied invasion of France, fled into exile to Germany in September 1944 with the rest of the French cabinet. It operated as a government-in-exile until April 1945, when the Sigmaringen enclave was taken by Free French forces. Pétain was brought back to France, by then under control of the Provisional French Republic, and put on trial for treason.
