 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
The Pacte Synarchique is a historical theory that the surrender of Vichy France was as a result of a conspiracy by French industrial and banking interests to surrender France to Hitler in order to fight Communism.
This theory allegedly originated with the discovery of a document called Pacte Synarchique following the death (May 19, 1941) of Jean Coutrot, former member of Groupe X-Crise, on May 15, 1941. According to this document, a Mouvement Synarchique d'Empire had been founded in 1922 with the aim of abolishing parliamentarianism and replacing it with synarchy. This led to the belief that La Cagoule, a far-right organisation, was the armed branch of French synarchism, and that some important members of the Vichy Regime were synarchists. The Vichy government ordered an investigation, leading to the Rapport Chavin [1] but no evidence for the existence of the Mouvement Synarchiste d'Empire was found. Most of the presumed synarchists were either associated with the Banque Worms or with Groupe X-Crise; they were close to Admiral François Darlan (Vichy prime minister 1941–1942), and this has led to the belief[ by whom? ] that synarchists had engineered the military defeat of France for the profit of Banque Worms. [2]
Former OSS officer William Langer claimed that some French industrial and banking interests, even before the war, looked on Nazi Germany as the savior of Europe from Communism and to install a "synarchy" of industrialists and bankers to govern Europe, although he didn't refer to any specific Pacte. [3]
This belief system has been dismissed as a "work of a paranoid imagination which wove together the histories of three disparate groups of activists, creating a conspiracy among them where none existed". [4] Most historians [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [ excessive citations ] affirm that the Pacte Synarchique was a hoax created by some French collaborators with Nazi Germany to weaken Darlan and his Vichy technocrats. [14] Only the far-left historian Annie Lacroix-Riz defends the idea that the synarchy existed. [15] [16]
Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the École navale in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service during World War I. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1929, vice admiral in 1932, lieutenant admiral in 1937 before finally being made admiral and Chief of the Naval Staff in 1937. In 1939, Darlan was promoted to admiral of the fleet, a rank created specifically for him.
Synarchism generally means "joint rule" or "harmonious rule". Beyond this general definition, both synarchism and synarchy have been used to denote rule by a secret elite in Vichy France, Italy, China, and Hong Kong, while being used to describe a pro-Catholic theocracy movement in Mexico.
Henri Michel was a French historian, who studied the Second World War. He created the Comité d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale and the Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale.
Jean-Pierre Azéma is a French historian.
The non-conformists of the 1930s were groups and individuals during the inter-war period in France that were seeking new solutions to face the political, economical and social crisis. The name was coined in 1969 by the historian Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle to describe a movement which revolved around Emmanuel Mounier's personalism. They attempted to find a "third (communitarian) alternative" between socialism and capitalism, and opposed both liberalism/parliamentarism/democracy and fascism.
The Service du travail obligatoire was the forced enlistment and deportation of hundreds of thousands of French workers to Nazi Germany to work as forced labour for the German war effort during World War II.
Vichy France, officially the French State, was the French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. It was named after its seat of government, the city of Vichy. Officially independent, but with half of its territory occupied under the harsh terms of the 1940 armistice with Nazi Germany, it adopted a policy of collaboration. Though Paris was nominally its capital, the 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. The occupation of France by Nazi Germany at first affected only the northern and western portions of the country, but in November 1942 the Germans and Italians occupied the remainder of Metropolitan France, ending any pretence of independence by the Vichy government.
Jacques Michel Gabriel Paul Benoist-Méchin was a French far right politician and writer. He was born and died in Paris. Well known as a journalist, he later became prominent for his collaborationism under the Vichy regime. After his conviction in 1947 and release in 1954, in the second part of his life he became a historian, with a focus on the Arab world, and in 1981 won the Prix Broquette-Gonin.
The Prix Guizot is an annual prize of the Académie Française, which has been awarded in the field of history since 1994 by Fondations Guizot, Chodron de Courcel, Yvan Loiseau and Eugène Piccard.
Jean Coutrot was a French engineer.
Annie Lacroix-Riz is a French historian, professor emeritus of modern history at the university Paris VII - Denis Diderot, specialist in the international relations in first half of the 20th century and collaboration.
Led by Philippe Pétain, the Vichy regime that replaced the French Third Republic in 1940 chose the path of collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. This policy included the Bousquet-Oberg accords of July 1942 that formalized the collaboration of the French police with the German police. This collaboration was manifested in particular by anti-Semitic measures taken by the Vichy government, and by its active participation in the genocide.
Diane Lamoureux is a Canadian professor, essayist, and writer. She serves as Professor of Sociology in the Political Science Department of Laval University in Quebec. Her research focuses on the intersection of politics, sociology, and feminism.
Yves-Marie Bercé, is a French historian known for his work on popular revolts of the modern era. He is a member of the Institut de France.
Bertrand Lançon is a French historian and novelist, a specialist of late Antiquity.
Roland Laudenbach was a French writer, editor, journalist, literary critic and scenarist. He had right-wing political beliefs aligned with the Action Française. After World War II he supported keeping Algeria part of France and saw the 1962 recognition of Algerian independence as a betrayal of the people by Christian and Socialist leaders. He edited or contributed to various literary and political magazines, wrote several novels, and wrote scripts and screenplays for numerous films.
Pierre Amidieu du Clos was a French engineer, iron master and politician. He inherited interests in industrial operations in Lorraine, and later went into politics. He had right wing views, and was a strong nationalist. He collaborated with the Germans during the occupation of France during World War II.
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 Marshal Philippe Pétain as the successor to the French Third Republic in June 1940. The government remained in Vichy for four years, but fled to Germany in September 1944 after the Allied invasion of France. 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.
On the night of October 2–3, 1941, six synagogues were attacked in Paris and damaged by explosive devices places by their doors between 2:05 and 4:05 am. The perpetrators were identified but not arrested.
The Law of 3 October 1940 on the status of Jews was a law enacted by Vichy France. It provided a legal definition of the expression Jewish race, which was used during the Nazi occupation for the implementation of Vichy's ideological policy of "National Revolution" comprising corporatist and antisemitic racial policies. It also listed the occupations forbidden to Jews meeting the definition. The law was signed by Marshall Philippe Pétain and the main members of his government.