Épuration légale
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The épuration légale (French for 'legal purge') was the wave of official trials that followed the
Unlike the
Immediately following Liberation France was swept by a wave of executions, public humiliations, assaults and detentions of suspected collaborators, known as the
Background
The term purge (épuration) had been used earlier by de Gaulle under different circumstances. When the Allies arrived in November 1942, North Africa supported Vichy.
Context
After Liberation, the
In metropolitan France the official purge began in early 1945, although isolated civil trials and courts-martial, as well as thousands of extra-legal vigilante actions had already been carried out through 1944, as the nation was freed. Women accused of "horizontal collaboration" were arrested, had their heads shaved, and were exhibited, and sometimes mauled by crowds for sexual relationships with Germans during the occupation.
Following
Organized implementation of the official purge was impeded by a lack of untainted magistrates. With a single exception, all of the Third Republic's surviving judges had taken a loyalty oath to the disgraced regime.[9]
Three major types of civilian courts were set up:
- the High Court of Justice(Haute Cour de justice)
- the Courts of Justice, modeled on the Cour d'assises(Assize Court)
- the "Civic Chambers" (Chambres civiques).
A fourth category, military courts-martial, had jurisdiction over French citizens charged with pro-German military acts and German nationals charged with war crimes, such as Pierre Pucheu, Vichy Minister of the Interior, and Nazi Germany's ambassador in Paris,Otto Abetz.[9]
The High Court judged 108 persons including 106 government ministers. In total the courts investigated more than 300,000 people, closing 180,000 of them without any indictment, and in the end fewer than 800 executions took place.[9] Three successive general amnesties were enacted, in 1947, 1951 and 1953.[9]
Legal basis
While the laws of 1939 included provisions against
- Taking part in collaborationist organizations or parties
- Taking part in propaganda
- Delation (denunciation)
- Any form of zeal in favor of the Germans
- Black market activities
On the other hand, preventing a civil war meant that competent civil servants should not be taken out of office, and that moderate sentences should be given where possible. More importantly, this prevented local Resistance movements from doing vigilante "justice" themselves, ending the "combative" period of the Liberation and restoring the proper legal institutions of France. These new institutions were set on three principles:
- Illegality of the Vichy regime
- France still being at war with Nazi Germany: the Franco-German armisticelegally called for a cease fire and an end to military operations, but did not end the state of war, and no peace treaty was signed with Germany. Hence, it remained the duty of any French to resist occupation.
- Retroactivity of the new texts
On 26 August 1944, the government published an order defining the offence of
Courts of Justice
On 18 November, the
The new High Court was no longer composed of senators, but presided over by the first President of the
The composition of the High Court was changed again by the 27 December 1945 Act. Thereafter, it was composed of 27 members, i.e. 3 magistrates and 24 jurors randomly chosen from a list of 96 deputies of the
The High Court was further modified by the 15 September 1947 Act, and then again by the 19 April 1948 Act.
Internment of accused
The French
On 31 October 1944, the Minister of Interior
Trials
The first high official tried in the purge was
The trial of Pétain began on 23 July 1945. Pétain's defense lawyer, Jacques Isorni, pointed out that the public prosecutor, André Mornet , had also been in charge of the failed Riom Trials organized by Pétain under the Vichy regime.[9] This may not have impressed the judge, Pierre Mongibeaux, who had sworn allegiance to Petain in 1941. The 89-year-old Marshal was sentenced to death on 15 August but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He lived six more years, banished to the Île d'Yeu.
Pierre Laval, the French Prime Minister from July to December 1940 and from April 1942 to August 1944, had fled to Francoist Spain. Franco sent him back to Innsbruck in Austria, which was part of the U.S. Occupation Zone. Laval was handed over to the French authorities and his trial started in October 1945. In a hasty, rancorous trial, he was sentenced by an openly hostile jury to death on 9 October 1945 and executed a week later.
By 1 July 1949, the High Court had given out 108 sentences, 106 against former ministers:
- Eight defendants died before their trials and their judicial proceedings were stopped, including that of Jean Bichelonne.[9]
- Three persons, including Minister of National Education in François Darlan's cabinet (1941–1942).[9]
- Eighteen were sentenced to death, of whom three were carried out on Pierre Laval, Milice leader Joseph Darnand and Fernand de Brinon, representative of the Vichy government to the German High Command in Paris and state secretary. Five sentences were commuted, among them Pétain, Henri Dentz, commander of the Army of the Levant and Raphaël Alibert, signatory of the first Law on the status of Jews.[9] Ten others were condemned to death in absentia (including Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Commissioner for Jewish Affairs).[9]
- Eight men were sentenced to
- Fourteen were imprisoned, including préfet maritime of Toulon, Bléhaut Henri and others; a life sentence was given to Jean-Pierre Esteva.[9]
- Fifteen sentences of Jean Ybarnegaray and André Parmentier.[9]
Between 1954 and 1960, the High Court judged prisoners who had been sentenced in absentia or had been taken prisoner. More than a decade having passed, the court showed more leniency. For example, the
See also
- Raymond Abellio, condemned in absentia to 20 years of prison, granted amnesty in 1952
- Jacques de Bernonville, sentenced to capital punishment in absentia
- political asylum by Franco.
- René Bousquet, granted amnesty (judged in the early 1980s, along with Jean Leguay, for his role in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942)
- Robert Brasillach, anti-Semitic journalist, executed in February 1945
- Marcel Bucard, leader of the Mouvement Franciste, executed in 1946
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, writer, convicted in absentia to one year of prison and dégradation nationale, then granted amnesty
- Marcel Déat, founder of the National Popular Rally (RNP), sentenced to capital punishment in absentia
- Émile Dewoitine, condemned in absentia, fled to Argentina
- Roland Gaucher, condemned to five years of prison
- Yann Goulet, sentenced to death in absentia, fled to the Republic of Ireland and became an Irish citizen in 1952
- Roparz Hemon, imprisoned for one year and given a ten years indignité nationale sentence
- Alan Heusaff, sentenced to death in absentia, fled to the Republic of Ireland and was amnestied in 1967
- Jean Hérold-Paquis, broadcaster on Radio Paris, executed
- Etienne Léandri, fought under the uniform of the Gestapo, but was not judged
- Jean Mamy, film director and journalist, condemned to death and executed at the fortress of Montrouge on 29 March 1949
- Charles Maurras, given a life sentence in January 1945, released in 1952 for health reasons
- Maurice Papon, police administrator, escaped judgment by a CDL, finally found guilty of crimes against humanity in the 1990s
- Le Pilori, condemned in November 1947 in absentia to 20 years of prison and dégradation nationale. Granted amnesty in 1959
- Lucien Rebatet, sentenced to capital punishment in 1946, commuted to forced labour in 1947, amnestied in 1952
- Paul Touvier, sentenced to capital punishment in absentia, arrested in 1989 and judged for crimes against humanity
- Xavier Vallat, granted amnesty
References
- ^ Judt, Tony, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Pimlico (London: 2007), p. 46.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-925457-6.
- ^ Huddleston, Sisley (1955). France; The Tragic Years 1939-1947. New York: The Devin-Adair Company. p. 299. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
- doi:10.1086/598922. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
- OCLC 1085291500. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
Most of the European colonial population of Algeria wholeheartedly supported the Vichy government. ... Even after the Allies under General Dwight D. Eisenhower liberated Algeria in November 1942, General Henri Giraud, appointed by Eisenhower as civil and military commander in chief, only slowly rescinded the Vichy legislation. It was almost a year before the Cre'mieux decrees were reactivated, against the virulent opposition of the European colonialists.
- OCLC 1037916970. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
- ^ Pierre Buttin, Le procès Pucheu, Paris, Amiot-Dumont, 1948
- ^ Fred Kupferman, Le procès de Vichy : Pucheu, Pétain, Laval, Bruxelles, Editions Complexe, 1980
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cointet, Jean-Paul. "Epuration légale : 400 000 dossiers, moins de 800 morts" (in French). Historia. Archived from the original on 10 September 2004.
- ^ "The Face of Dishonor". Time. 26 March 1945. Archived from the original on 22 December 2011. Retrieved 11 May 2008.