The armistice is signed on June 22, 1940. The national territory was fragmented. A demarcation line separated the German-occupied northern zone from the so-called free southern zone. On July 11, the title of “Head of the French State” is conferred on Philippe Pétain by the National Assembly. The word “Republic” was abolished from official texts. The anti-Republican French far right triumphs.
The government moves to the Free Zone in Vichy. The National Revolution became the official ideology of the Petainist regime.
Pierre Laval, appointed Vice-President of the Council, implements the policy of state collaboration with Hitler’s Germany.
Responsibility for the defeat is attributed to the “Anti-France”: the Popular Front, political opponents, foreigners, Freemasons and, above all, Jews.
Daily anti-Semitism began to spread in July, both in Paris and in the southern zone. Far-right groups attack Jewish-owned stores. Pétain introduced anti-Jewish laws in France without any particular pressure from the Germans: the law of July 22, 1940 established a process for reviewing naturalizations acquired since 1927. Among the “denaturalized” were 6,000 Jews. A law of August 16 reserved the practice of medicine to French nationals “with original title”. The same applies to lawyers the following month. On August 27, the Marchandeau law condemning racist or anti-Semitic articles in the press was repealed. Anti-Semitic hatred immediately flared up in the newspaper columns.
It was the revenge of the anti-Dreyfusards. The French state’s anti-Semitism of exclusion intensified. Nazi anti-Semitism of destruction would come later.
