Dr Chris Millington Swansea Universityc.d.millington@swansea.ac.uk@DrChris82Frenchhistoryonline.com

Life in Occupied ParisThe Resistancea)De Gaulle and the Free Frenchb)Domestic resistancec)Communist resistanceWhat was ‘resistance’?How many French resisted?

Above: Pétain meets Hitler at Montoire, Oct.1940Left: ‘Are you more French than him?’

1. Street sellers offer them [the Germans] maps of Paris and phrasebooks; buses pour out incessant waves of them in front of Notre-Dame and the Panthéon; there is not one of them who has not got a camera to his eye. Be under no illusion: they are not tourists.

‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013

‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013

‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013

‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013

‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013

‘Paris through a Nazi’s Lens’, Daily Mail, 11 September 2013

No, not in 1940: there was resistance inside and outside France

Charles de Gaulle, leader of the London-based Free FrenchChristian Pineau, founder of Libération-Nord

Based in London

De Gaulle speaks to France via the BBC

Located at the Arc de Triomphe, Paris

1940-1941: de Gaulle and his comrades are isolated

Free French agents, under Dewavrin, operate in France

On 2 October 1941 de Gaulle claims to be directing the resistance……

But he has little knowledge of, and contact with, resistance movements in France

BBC radio is primary means of actions

1940: disjointed and diversePractical problems – such as the

Demarcation Line - obstruct operations

There are several groups in the North and the South such as Libération-Nord and Libération- Sud – two different groups

The presence of the Germans makes resistance difficult

Groups were fragmented, small, often did not survive

Printing materials controlled

A 1944 British propaganda poster:‘French resistance helps throttle the Boche’

Groups are freer to act than in the North

But there is a need to break public complacency

Image from a resistance poster

Vichy propaganda presented the Marshal as the saviour of France and the French

Jean MoulinGathers information on the

resistance movements during 1941, and meets de Gaulle in London in October that year

He was the link between London and France

Resistance leaders meet with de Gaulle (1942)

13 July 1942, Britain recognises the Free French as leader of the whole resistance

Conseil National de la Résistance, created May 1943, under the impetus of Jean Moulin

The CNR was ‘the voice of the internal resistance’ (Nick Atkin)

The CNR recognised de Gaulle as representative of French interest.

A Free French poster, showing the Cross of Lorraine

1940 – French Communist Party is officially neutral

1941 – Nazi invasion of USSR sees a change in policy

Communists commit violent attacks against Germans

L’Humanité was, and is, the newspaper of French communism

A Communist recruitment poster:‘The Irregulars and French Partisans are going to spill their blood for the people of Paris’

- A vital form of propaganda

- Most important in the South

- Used for recruitment, spread of ideas, opposition

- But how many people read them?

- Example of 14 July 1942 – shows public awareness of the Resistance

Combat (Southern resistance)

Published by The Midnight PressWritten by Jean Bruller, aka ‘Vercors’Encouraged ‘moral’ resistance – in

this way it reflected the time in which it was written (before 1942)

Image from Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1949 film

Not very!Few French had heard of a

movementOnly in mid-1942 did the public

begin to turn away from Vichy14 July 1942, first signs of mass

public disaffection

- Women did take part in combat but were more important In logistical and support roles- Fighting still thought of as a man’s job

Is it simply active resistance? According to US historian Robert

Paxton, about 400, 000 French were members or a movement

2 million read the underground press Only in 1943 did French turn away from

Vichy The ‘overwhelming majority’ of French

were not prepared to resist – they were as good as collaborators

Should we count minor acts, and passive resistance, too?

US historian John Sweets thinks so There were many brave but small acts

of resistance outside the movements We need to think again about the

meaning of ‘resistance’ Was it enough to just think anti-

German thoughts?

Imagine that Britain was defeated in 1940

The Nazis are in London and a collaborationist government runs the country

Visions of a Nazi Britain

Resist, of course!But, on second thoughts…….