174-887: 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
348-522: A constituent assembly (constitutional convention) to write a new constitution. Instead Pétain used his plenary powers to establish the authoritarian French State. Pierre Laval and other Vichy ministers initially prioritized saving French lives and repatriating French prisoners of war. The illusion of autonomy was important to Vichy, which wanted to avoid direct rule by the German military government . German authorities implicitly threatened to replace
522-510: A banking and savings system that would provide credit to the working class, and to establish agricultural colonies similar to the kibbutzim later founded in Israel. This book was widely reprinted and circulated in France, and played an important part in his future electoral success. Louis Napoleon was busy in prison, but also unhappy and impatient. He was aware that the popularity of his uncle
696-453: A broad popular mandate, so on 20–21 December a national plebiscite was held asking if voters agreed to the coup. Mayors in many regions threatened to publish the names of any electors who refused to vote. When asked if they agreed to the coup, 7,439,216 voters said yes, 641,737 voted no, and 1.7 million voters abstained. The fairness and legality of the referendum was immediately questioned by Louis Napoleon's critics, but Louis Napoleon
870-497: A clear majority, enough to block any initiatives of Louis Napoleon. On 11 June 1849, the socialists and radical republicans made an attempt to seize power. Ledru-Rollin , from his headquarters in the Conservatory of Arts and Professions , declared that Louis Napoleon was no longer President and called for a general uprising. A few barricades appeared in the working-class neighborhoods of Paris. Louis Napoleon acted swiftly, and
1044-491: A compendium of his political ideas which was published in three editions and eventually translated into six languages. He based his doctrine upon two ideas: universal suffrage and the primacy of the national interest. He called for a "monarchy which procures the advantages of the Republic without the inconveniences", a regime "strong without despotism, free without anarchy, independent without conquest". He also intended to build
1218-579: A contingent of about sixty armed men, hired a ship called the Edinburgh-Castle , and on 6 August 1840, sailed across the Channel to the port of Boulogne . The attempted coup turned into an even greater fiasco than the Strasbourg mutiny. The mutineers were stopped by the customs agents, the soldiers of the garrison refused to join, the mutineers were surrounded on the beach, one was killed and
1392-622: A crackdown by the Germans. Unemployment benefits could be denied if jobs were available in Germany, so an average of 20,000 Danes worked in German factories through the five years of the war. The Danish cabinet, however, rejected German demands for legislation discriminating against Denmark's Jewish minority. Demands for a death penalty were likewise rebuffed and so were demands to give German military courts jurisdiction over Danish citizens and for
1566-596: A devastated military, and poet Paul Valéry called him "the champion of France". He became Vice-Premier under Paul Reynaud in May 1940, when the only question was whether the French Army should surrender or the French government should sue for an armistice . After President Albert Lebrun appointed Pétain prime minister on 16 June, the government signed an armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940 . With France fallen to
1740-470: A gifted orator; he spoke slowly, in a monotone, with a slight German accent from his Swiss education. His opponents sometimes ridiculed him, one comparing him to "a turkey who believes he's an eagle". Louis Napoleon's campaign appealed to both the left and right. His election manifesto proclaimed his support for "religion, family, property, the eternal basis of all social order". But it also announced his intent "to give work to those unoccupied; to look out for
1914-611: A key characteristic of his time in power, as manifested in Vichy anti-Jewish legislation . Until the invasion, the French Third Republic had been the government of France since the defeat of Napoleon III and the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. It was dissolved by the French Constitutional Law of 1940 , which gave Pétain the power to write a new constitution. He interpreted this to mean that
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#17327722600012088-586: A laborer carrying lumber, and walked out of the prison. His enemies later derisively called him "Badinguet", the name of the laborer whose identity he had assumed. A carriage was waiting to take him to the coast and then by boat to England. A month after his escape, his father Louis died, making Charles Napoleon the clear heir to the Bonaparte dynasty. Louis Napoleon quickly resumed his place in British society. He lived on King Street, St James's , London, went to
2262-430: A letter to Hitler as "pure and simple sabotage", after meeting more than seven hours on 6 August 1943 with Laval, who again attempted to minimize the number of requisitioned workers and refused to his demand for 50 000 workers for Germany before the end of 1943. On 15 September 1943, Reich minister for Armament and War Production Albert Speer reached an agreement with Laval minister Jean Bichelonne — an agreement Laval
2436-472: A mandate to amend the constitution. Work began on the new document in 1852. It was officially prepared by a committee of eighty experts but was actually drafted by a small group of the Prince-President's inner circle. Under the new constitution, Louis Napoleon was automatically reelected as president. Under Article Two, the president could now serve an unlimited number of 10-year terms. He was given
2610-633: A new contingent of 250,000 men, before mid-March To meet these objectives, German forces organised ineffectively brutal raids, which led Laval to propose to the Council of Ministers on 5 February 1943 legislation creating the STO, under which youth born in 1920-1922 were requisitioned for work service in Germany Laval mitigated his legislation with many exceptions. In all, 600 000 men left between June 1942 and August 1943 despite what Sauckel denounced in
2784-521: A president elected by popular vote through universal male suffrage, rather than chosen by the National Assembly. The elections were scheduled for 10–11 December 1848. Louis Napoleon promptly announced his candidacy. There were four other candidates for the post: General Cavaignac, who had led the suppression of the June uprisings in Paris; Lamartine, the poet-philosopher and leader of the provisional government; Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin ,
2958-503: A purely technocratic institution, has been accused of helping to implement German occupation policies. Despite its intention of mitigating harm to Belgians, it enabled but could not moderate German policies such as the persecution of Jews and deportation of workers to Germany. It did manage to delay the latter to October 1942. Encouraging the Germans to delegate tasks to the Committee made their implementation much more efficient than
3132-462: A slight but noticeable German accent. His tutor at home was Philippe Le Bas , an ardent republican and the son of a revolutionary and close friend of Robespierre . Le Bas taught him French history and radical politics. When Louis Napoleon was 15, his mother Hortense moved to Rome , where the Bonapartes had a villa. He passed his time learning Italian , exploring the ancient ruins and learning
3306-513: A three-year residency requirement. This new law excluded 3.5 of 9 million French voters, the voters that the leader of the Party of Order, Adolphe Thiers, scornfully called "the vile multitude". This new election law was passed in May 1850 by a majority of 433 to 241, putting the National Assembly on a direct collision course with the Prince-President. Louis Napoleon broke with the Assembly and
3480-496: A train, drew hostile reactions. On 13 October 1942 the Oullins incidents broke out in the suburbs of Lyon, where workers at the railway station went on strike. Someone wrote "Laval assassin!" (Laval murderer) on the trains. The government was forced to back away; on 1 December 1942 only 2,500 requisitioned workers had left the southern zone. On 1 January 1943, Sauckel demanded, in addition to the 240,000 workers already sent to Germany,
3654-473: A treaty of non-aggression signed the year before, but claimed they would "respect Danish sovereignty and territorial integrity, and neutrality." The Danish government quickly surrendered and remained intact. The parliament maintained control over domestic policy. Danish public opinion generally backed the new government, particularly after the Fall of France in June 1940. Denmark's government cooperated with
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#17327722600013828-569: A way to produce an heir for the Emperor, who agreed, as Joséphine was by then infertile. Louis and Hortense had a difficult relationship and only lived together for brief periods. Their first son, Napoléon Charles Bonaparte , died in 1807 and—though separated and parents of a healthy second son, Napoléon Louis —they decided to have a third child. They resumed their marriage for a brief time in Toulouse starting from 12 August 1807 and Louis Napoleon
4002-435: A wider European community of nations. "I believe", wrote Louis Napoleon, "that from time to time, men are created whom I call volunteers of providence, in whose hands are placed the destiny of their countries. I believe I am one of those men. If I am wrong, I can perish uselessly. If I am right, then providence will put me into a position to fulfill my mission." He had seen the popular enthusiasm for Napoleon Bonaparte when he
4176-635: A year later, the PCF completely changed its stance and became one of the key players of the French Resistance. Vichy initially agreed, for every repatriated French prisoner-of-war, to send three French volunteers to work in German factories. When this program (known as la relève ) didn't draw enough workers to please the Reich, Vichy began in February 1943 to conscript young Frenchmen, ages 18—20 into
4350-516: A young woman from the town of Ham, who gave birth to two of his children. While in prison, Louis Napoleon wrote poems, political essays, and articles on diverse topics. He contributed articles to regional newspapers and magazines in towns all over France, becoming quite well known as a writer. His most famous book was L'extinction du pauperisme (1844), a study of the causes of poverty in the French industrial working class, with proposals to eliminate it. His conclusion: "The working class has nothing, it
4524-828: A youth he had joined in the patriotic uprising against the Austrians. The previous government had sent an expeditionary force, which had been tasked and funded by the National Assembly to support the republican forces in Italy against the Austrians and against the Pope. Instead the force was secretly ordered to do the opposite, namely to enter Rome to help restore the temporal authority of Pope Pius IX , who had been overthrown by Italian republicans including Mazzini and Garibaldi . The French troops came under fire from Garibaldi's soldiers. The Prince-President, without consulting his ministers, ordered his soldiers to fight if needed in support of
4698-413: Is necessary to give them ownership. They have no other wealth than their own labor, it is necessary to give them work that will benefit all....they are without organization and without connections, without rights and without a future; it is necessary to give them rights and a future and to raise them in their own eyes by association, education, and discipline." He proposed various practical ideas for creating
4872-574: The Service du travail obligatoire (STO; English: compulsory labour service), a compulsory two-year labour draft that resulted in the deportation to German labor camps of 800,000 Frenchmen. Very unpopular, the STO provoked growing hostility towards the policy of collaboration and led to a great number of young men joining the French Resistance rather than report for it. People began to disappear into forests and mountain wildernesses to join
5046-635: The Société Générale , assassinated in February 1944. Among the retaliatory massacres of civilians were the Courcelles massacre , in which 20 civilians were killed by the Rexist paramilitary for the assassination of a Burgomaster , and a massacre at Meensel-Kiezegem , where 67 were killed. The Channel Islands were the only British territory in Europe occupied by Nazi Germany. The policy of
5220-535: The maquis (rural Resistance). Long before the Occupation, France had had a history of native anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism , as seen in the controversy over the guilt of Alfred Dreyfus (from 1894 to 1906). Historians differ how much of Vichy's anti-Semitic campaigns came from native French roots, how much from willing collaboration with the German occupiers and how much from simple (and sometimes reluctant) cooperation with Nazi instructions. Pierre Laval
5394-670: 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 . Philippe Pétain, a hero of World War I, known for applying the lessons of the Second Battle of Champagne to minimize casualties in
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5568-686: The Battle of Verdun , became commander of French forces in 1917. He came to power in World War II as a reaction to the stunning defeat of France in early 1940. Pétain blamed a lack of men and material for the defeat, but had himself participated in the egregious miscalculations that led to the Maginot Line , and the belief that the Ardennes were impenetrable . Nonetheless, Pétain's cautious and defensive tactics at Verdun had won him acclaim from
5742-689: The Director of Public Prosecutions ruled them out for insufficient grounds. In particular, it was decided that there were no legal grounds for proceeding against those alleged to have informed the occupying authorities against their fellow citizens. On the islands of Jersey and Guernsey , laws were passed to retrospectively confiscate the financial gains made by war profiteers and black marketeers. After liberation, British soldiers had to intervene to prevent revenge attacks on women thought to have fraternized with German soldiers. When on 9 April 1940, German forces invaded neutral Denmark, they violated
5916-800: The Eastern Front . From July 1941, a total of 5,800 French volunteers served with the LVF until its disbanding in November 1944. In February 1945, French volunteers, either from the LVF or the Milice, were incorporated into the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne , which had a strength of 7,340 men at the time of its deployment in eastern Europe and Berlin. According to French historian Pierre Giolitto about 30,000 Frenchmen served in German military units (including non-combatants), during
6090-691: The Final Solution after the Wannsee Conference with the French Police. The Germans then demanded that Pierre Laval return to power, and in the meantime they broke off all contact. On 30 March 1942, the Americans intervened in Vichy against Laval's return to power. On 17 August 1944, Pierre Laval , head of government and minister of foreign affairs, held his last council of government with five ministers. With permission from
6264-603: The French Committee of National Liberation . Past collaborators were discredited and Gaullism and communism became political forces. De Gaulle led the GPRF 1944-1946 while negotiations took place for a new constitution, to be put to a referendum . De Gaulle advocated a presidential system of government, and criticized the reinstatement of what he pejoratively called "the parties system". He resigned in January 1946 and
6438-800: The French National Assembly Assemblée nationale met in Vichy and voted to give absolute power to Pétain in the Constitutional Law of 1940 , effectively dissolving itself, and ending the Third Republic. The Vichy regime began. In the French State under Pétain, French authorities willingly enacted and enforced antisemitic laws, unprompted by Berlin. His collaborationist government helped send 75,721 Jewish refugees and French citizens to Nazi death camps. The fifth government formed by Pierre Laval
6612-640: The Germanic SS . In addition, Norwegian police units like the Statspolitiet helped arrest many of Jews in Norway . All but 23 of the 742 Jews deported to concentration camps and death camps were murdered or died before the end of the war. Knut Rød , the Norwegian police officer most responsible for the arrest, detention and transfer of Jewish men, women and children to SS troops at Oslo harbour,
6786-578: The Italian invasion of Albania , the Royal Albanian Army , police and gendarmerie were amalgamated into the Italian armed forces in the newly created Italian protectorate of Albania . Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the first president of France from 1848 to 1852, and the last monarch of France as
6960-529: The National Assembly on 13–14 May 1849 , only a few months after Louis Napoleon had become president, and were largely won by a coalition of conservative republicans—which Catholics and monarchists called "The Party of Order "—led by Thiers. The socialists and "red" republicans, led by Ledru-Rollin and Raspail, also did well, winning two hundred seats. The moderate republicans, in the middle, did very badly, taking just 70–80 seats. The Party of Order had
7134-517: The Swiss Army , trained to become an officer, and wrote a manual of artillery (his uncle Napoleon had become famous as an artillery officer). Louis Napoleon also began writing about his political philosophy—for as the early twentieth century English historian H. A. L. Fisher suggested, "the programme of the Empire was not the improvisation of a vulgar adventurer" but the result of deep reflection on
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7308-779: The Treaty of Turin as its deferred reward. At the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. He was also favourable towards the 1859 union of the Danubian Principalities , which resulted in the establishment of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia . Napoleon doubled the area of the French colonial empire with expansions in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. On
7482-553: The relève had failed, since fewer than 60 000 French workers had gone to Germany by the end of August. He threatened to issue an ordonnance to requisition male and female manpower. This ordonnance would only have had effect in the occupied zone. Laval negotiated a French law covering both zones instead. Laval put workplace inspection, the police and the gendarmerie at the service of forced impressments of labor, and tracking Service du travail obligatoire scofflaws. Forced impressments of workers, guarded by gendarmes until they boarded
7656-549: The relève policy as French participation, by providing workers, in the German war effort. "They give their blood. Give your labour to save Europe from Bolshevism". Nazi propaganda leaflet suggesting French workers travel to Germany to support the war effort on the eastern front (1943) The voluntary relève , was replaced by the Service du travail obligatoire (STO) which began in August 1942 throughout occupied Europe. To Sauckel,
7830-635: The Élysée Palace at the end of December 1848 and immediately hung a portrait of his mother in the boudoir and a portrait of Napoleon I, in his coronation robes, in the grand salon. Adolphe Thiers recommended that he wear clothing of "democratic simplicity", but following the model of his uncle, he chose instead the uniform of the General-in-Chief of the National Guard , and chose the title of "Prince-President". Louis Napoleon also made his first venture into foreign policy, in Italy, where as
8004-698: The 26th, Pétain was in the hands of French authorities in Switzerland, and Laval had fled to Spain. Brinon, Luchaire, and Darnand were captured, tried, and executed by 1947. Other members escaped to Italy or Spain. The liberation of France in 1944 dissolved the Vichy government. The Provisional Consultative Assembly requested representation, leading to the Provisional Government of the French Republic (French: Gouvernement provisoire de la République française , GPRF ), also known as
8178-472: The 75,721 jews deported from France to death camps in Poland , only 2,567 survived. As the Liberation spread across France in 1944–45, so did the so-called Wild Purges ( Épuration sauvage ). Resistance groups took summary reprisals, especially against suspected informers and members of Vichy's anti-partisan paramilitary, the Milice . Unofficial courts tried and punished thousands of people accused (sometimes unjustly) of collaborating and consorting with
8352-438: The Bonaparte family, Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte , Pierre Napoléon Bonaparte , and Lucien Murat were elected; the name Bonaparte still had political power. In the next elections, on 4 June, where candidates could run in multiple departments, he was elected in four different departments; in Paris, he was among the top five candidates, just after the conservative leader Adolphe Thiers and Victor Hugo . His followers were mostly on
8526-543: The Bonaparte legend and increased his publicity. King Louis Philippe had demanded that the Swiss government return Louis Napoleon to France, but the Swiss pointed out that he was a Swiss soldier and citizen and refused to hand him over. The King responded by sending an army to the Swiss border. Louis Napoleon thanked his Swiss hosts, and voluntarily left the country. The other mutineers were put on trial in Alsace , and were all acquitted. Louis Napoleon traveled first to London, then to Brazil , and then to New York City. He met
8700-471: The Castle, but refused to cooperate, and kept mostly to himself, and ex-Prime Minister Pierre Laval also refused. Despite the efforts of the collaborationists and the Germans, Pétain never recognized the Sigmaringen Commission. The Germans, wanting to present a facade of legality, enlisted other Vichy officials such as Fernand de Brinon as president, along with Joseph Darnand , Jean Luchaire , Eugène Bridoux , and Marcel Déat . On 7 September 1944, fleeing
8874-620: The Danish parliament passed the Communist Law , outlawing the Communist Party of Denmark and also communist activities, in another violation of the Danish constitution. In 1943, about half of the imprisoned communists were transferred to Stutthof concentration camp , where 22 of them died. Industrial production and trade were, partly due to geopolitical reality and economic necessity, redirected towards Germany. Many government officials saw expanded trade with Germany as vital to maintaining social order in Denmark and feared that higher unemployment and poverty could lead to civil unrest, resulting in
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#17327722600019048-400: The Flemish nationalism of VNV and the German Flamenpolitik . Rex became increasingly radical after 1941 and declared itself part of the Waffen-SS . Although the pre-war Belgian government went into exile in 1940, the Belgian civil service remained in place for much of the occupation. The Committee of Secretaries-General , an administrative panel of civil servants, although conceived as
9222-404: The French border. Hortense and Louis Napoleon traveled incognito to Paris, where the old regime of King Charles X had just fallen and been replaced by the more liberal regime of Louis Philippe I , the sole monarch of the July Monarchy . They arrived in Paris on 23 April 1831, and took up residence under the name "Hamilton" in the Hotel du Holland on Place Vendôme . Hortense wrote an appeal to
9396-439: The French camps) to Nazi concentration and extermination camps. In 1995, President Jacques Chirac officially recognized the responsibility of the French state for the deportation of Jews during the war, in particular, the more than 13,000 victims, of whom only 2,500 survived, of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942, in which Laval decided, of his own volition, to deport children along with their parents. Bousquet also organized
9570-413: The French police to work with the Gestapo in the massive Marseille roundup ( rafle ) that decimated a whole neighbourhood in the Old Port . Estimates of how many of France's Jews (about 300,000 at the start of the Occupation) died in the Holocaust range from about 60,000 (≅ 20%) to about 130,000 (≅ 43%). According to Serge Klarsfeld ’s study of the records kept at the Drancy internment camp , out of
9744-425: The French public. The government of Philippe Pétain signed the armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940, put an end to the Third Republic on 10 July 1940 by a vote conveying full powers to Pétain and followed up with three Vichy Constitutional Acts on 11 July. Meanwhile, on 11 July General de Gaulle created the Empire Defense Council , which was recognized by the British Government as the legitimate successor of
9918-404: The German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, German authorities demanded the arrest of Danish communists. The Danish government complied, directing the police to arrest 339 communists listed on secret registers. Of these, 246, including the three communist members of the Danish parliament, were imprisoned in the Horserød camp , in violation of the Danish constitution. On 22 August 1941,
10092-493: The German in their hunt for Jews, including some policemen and the Henneicke Column . Many of them were members of the NSB. The column alone was responsible for the arrest of about 900 Jews. In Norway, the national government , headed by Vidkun Quisling , was installed by the Germans as a puppet regime during the German occupation , while king Haakon VII and the legally elected Norwegian government fled into exile. Quisling encouraged Norwegians to volunteer for service in
10266-485: The German occupiers until 1943, and helped organize sales of industrial and agricultural products to Germany. The Danish government enacted a number of policies to satisfy Germany and retain the social order. Newspaper articles and news reports "which might jeopardize German-Danish relations" were outlawed and on 25 November 1941, Denmark joined the Anti-Comintern Pact . The Danish government and King Christian X repeatedly discouraged sabotage and encouraged informing on
10440-420: The Germans could have achieved by force. Belgium depended on Germany for food imports, so the committee was always at a disadvantage in negotiations. The Belgian government in exile criticized the committee for helping the Germans. The Secretaries-General were also unpopular in Belgium itself. In 1942, journalist Paul Struye described them as "the object of growing and almost unanimous unpopularity." As
10614-424: The Germans from doing it unilaterally for the zone occupée alone. The Vichy régime considered itself the legitimate government of France, but Charles de Gaulle , who had escaped to England, declared a government in exile in London, and broadcast appeals to French citizens to resist the occupying forces. Britain shortly thereafter recognized his Empire Defence Council as the legitimate French government. Under
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#173277226000110788-532: The Germans to reduce the constraints under the armistice, free French prisoners, and eliminate the ligne de démarcation . This irritated the Germans. On 9 March 1942, Hitler signed a decree giving France a chief of the SS and police leader (HSSPF) tasked with organizing the " Final Solution ", following the Wannsee Conference with the French police. The Germans demanded the return of Laval to power, and broke off contact. The Americans intervened on 30 March to prevent another Laval administration. After two years at
10962-464: The Germans, he attempted to call back the prior National Assembly with the goal of giving it power and thus impeding the communists and de Gaulle. So he obtained the agreement of German ambassador Otto Abetz to bring Édouard Herriot , (President of the Chamber of Deputies ) back to Paris. But ultra-collaborationists Marcel Déat and Fernand de Brinon protested against this to the Germans, who changed their minds and took Laval to Belfort along with
11136-406: The Germans, the British judged the risk was too high of the French Navy falling into German hands, and a few days later, in the attack on Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940, they sank one battleship and damaged five others, also killing 1,297 French servicemen. Pétain severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom on 8 July. The next day the National Assembly voted to revise the constitution, and
11310-540: The King, asking to stay in France, and Louis Napoleon offered to volunteer as an ordinary soldier in the French Army . The new king agreed to meet secretly with Hortense; Louis Napoleon had a fever and did not join them. The King finally agreed that Hortense and Louis Napoleon could stay in Paris as long as their stay was brief and incognito. Louis-Napoleon was told that he could join the French Army if he would simply change his name, something he indignantly refused to do. Hortense and Louis Napoleon remained in Paris until 5 May,
11484-400: The Laval government that ended 13 December 1940. Flandin's short period in power was marked by intrigue and Hitler's suspicions about Vichy's level of collaboration with Germany. When it was clear that Darlan had more confidence in Berlin than Flandin did, Flandin resigned on 9 February 1941, leaving the way clear for Darlan. After two years at the head of the Vichy government, Admiral Darlan
11658-607: The Napoleonic political philosophy and on how to adjust it to the changed domestic and international scenes. As early as 1832 he presented a reconciliation between Bonapartism and republicanism through the principle of popular sovereignty. He believed a strong emperor existed to execute the will of the people. He published his Rêveries politiques or "political dreams" in 1833 at the age of 25, followed in 1834 by Considérations politiques et militaires sur la Suisse ("Political and military considerations about Switzerland"), followed in 1839 by Les Idées napoléoniennes ("Napoleonic Ideas"),
11832-418: The National Assembly were arrested in their homes. When about 220 deputies of the moderate right gathered at the city hall of the 10th arrondissement , they were also arrested. On 3 December, writer Victor Hugo and a few other republicans tried to organize an opposition to the coup. A few barricades appeared, and about 1,000 insurgents came out in the streets, but the army moved in force with 30,000 troops and
12006-426: The National Assembly, where Cavaignac was certain to win. The elections were held on 10–11 December. Results were announced on 20 December. Louis Napoleon was widely expected to win, but the size of his victory surprised almost everyone. He won 5,572,834 votes, or 74.2 percent of votes cast, compared with 1,469,156 for Cavaignac. The socialist Ledru-Rollin received 376,834; the extreme left candidate Raspail 37,106, and
12180-409: The National Assembly. In seven months, he had gone from a political exile in London to a highly visible place in the National Assembly, as the government finished the new constitution and prepared for the first election ever of a president of the French Republic. The new constitution of the Second Republic , drafted by a commission including Alexis de Tocqueville , called for a strong executive and
12354-447: The Nazis while also protecting Monaco's own Jews. The Germans re-organized the pre-war Dutch police and established a new Communal Police, which helped Germans fight the country's resistance and to deport Jews. The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB) had militia units, whose members were transferred to other paramilitaries like the Netherlands Landstorm or the Control Commando. A small number of people greatly assisted
12528-710: The Netherlands and Theodoros Pangalos in Greece saw collaboration as a path to personal power in the politics of their country. Others believed that Germany would prevail, and either wanted to be on the winning side, or feared being on the losing one. Axis military forces recruited many volunteers, sometimes at gunpoint, more often with promises that they later broke, or from among POWs trying to escape appalling and frequently lethal conditions in their detention camps. Other volunteers willingly enlisted because they shared Nazi or fascist ideologies. Stanley Hoffman in 1968 used
12702-585: The Paris police under President de Gaulle (thus bearing ultimate responsibility for the Paris massacre of 1961 ) and, 20 years later, as Budget Minister under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing , before Papon's 1998 conviction and imprisonment for crimes against humanity in organizing the deportation of 1,560 Jews from the Bordeaux region to the French internment camp at Drancy . Other collaborators such as Émile Dewoitine also managed to have important roles after
12876-751: The Pope. This was very popular with French Catholics, but infuriated the republicans, who supported the Roman Republic . To please the radical republicans, he asked the Pope to introduce liberal reforms and the Code Napoleon to the Papal States . To gain support from the Catholics, he approved the Loi Falloux in 1851, which restored a greater role for the Catholic Church in the French educational system. Elections were held for
13050-518: The Second Republic had been declared, led by a Provisional Government headed by a Commission led by Alphonse de Lamartine , and that different factions of republicans, from conservatives to those on the far left, were competing for power. He wrote to Lamartine announcing his arrival, saying that he "was without any other ambition than that of serving my country". Lamartine wrote back politely but firmly, asking Louis-Napoleon to leave Paris "until
13224-683: The Second World War. It was led until 10 July 1940 by Philippe Pétain , and favored the armistice, unlike General de Gaulle , who favored fighting on in the Empire Defense Council It was followed by the fifth administration of Pierre Laval , the first administration of the Vichy France regime. Paul Reynaud , who had been the French President of the Council since 22 March 1940, resigned early on
13398-526: The Third Republic, which had allied itself with Great Britain in the war against the Nazis. On 12 July 1940 Pétain named Pierre Laval , second Minister of State of the last government of the Third Republic under Philippe Pétain as vice-president of the Council , while Pétain remained simultaneously head of state and head of government . Constitutional Act #4 made Laval next in the line of succession should something happen to Pétain. On 16 July, Pétain formed
13572-825: The Third Republic. It administered the zone libre in the south of France until November 1942, when Germans and Italians occupied the zone under Case Anton following the Allied landings in North Africa under Operation Torch . Germany occupied northern France and the Atlantic coast, and the Italians occupied a small territory in the southeast. At the time of the armistice, the French and the Germans both thought Britain would come to terms any day, so it included only temporary arrangements. France agreed to its soldiers remaining prisoners of war until hostilities ceased. The terms of
13746-830: The Vichy administration with unreservedly pro-Nazi leaders such as Marcel Déat , Joseph Darnand and Jacques Doriot , who were permitted to operate, publish and criticise Vichy for insufficiently cooperation with Nazi Germany. The four main political factions which emerged as leading proponents of radical collaborationism in France were Marcel Déat's National Popular Rally ( Rassemblement National Populaire , RNP), Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party ( Parti Populaire Français , PPF), Eugène Deloncle 's Social Revolutionary Movement ( Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire , MSR), and Pierre Costantini 's French League ( Ligue Française ). These groups were small in size, between 1940 and 1944 fewer than 220,000 French people (including in North Africa ) joined collaborationist movements. In
13920-482: The Vichy regime in France, formed by Philippe Pétain. It succeeded the first Pierre Laval government on 14 December 1940 and ended on 9 February 1941. The Germans were unhappy after the sacking of Laval on 13 December, and suspicious of Flandin and whether he was sufficiently collaborationist. Darlan met with Hitler on 25 December and endured his anger, assuring Hitler that Vichy was still committed to collaboration. There followed several months of intrigue while Flandin
14094-573: The Waffen-SS , collaborated in the deportation of Jews, and was responsible for the executions of members of the Norwegian resistance movement . About 45,000 Norwegian collaborators joined the fascist party Nasjonal Samling (National Union), and about 8,500 of them enlisted in the Hirden collaborationist paramilitary organization. About 15,000 Norwegians volunteered on the Nazi side and 6,000 joined
14268-527: The absolute authority to declare war, sign treaties, form alliances and initiate laws. The Constitution re-established universal male suffrage , and also retained a National Assembly, albeit one with reduced authority. Louis Napoleon's government imposed new authoritarian measures to control dissent and reduce the power of the opposition. One of his first acts was to settle scores with his old enemy, King Louis Philippe, who had sent him to prison for life and who had died in 1850. A decree on 23 January 1852 forbade
14442-492: The administration of François Mitterrand , long held that the French government under Petain had merely sought to make the best of a bad situation. Vichy policy towards the Germans was at least in part founded on concern for the 1.8 million French prisoners of war. As President Jacques Chirac subsequently acknowledged, even Mussolini stood up to Hitler and in so doing saved the lives of thousands of Jews, many of them French. Antisemitism in France began before Pétain, but became
14616-673: The advance of Allied troops into France, while Germany was in flames and the Vichy regime ceased to exist, a thousand French collaborators (including a hundred officials of the Vichy regime, a few hundred members of the French Militia , collaborationist party militants, and the editorial staff of the newspaper Je suis partout ) but also waiting-game opportunists also went into exile in Sigmaringen. The commission had its own radio station (Radio-patrie, Ici la France) and official press ( La France , Le Petit Parisien ), and hosted
14790-627: The age of seven, Louis Napoleon visited his uncle at the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Napoleon held him up to the window to see the soldiers parading in the Place du Carrousel below. Louis Napoleon last saw his uncle with the family at the Château de Malmaison , shortly before Napoleon departed for the Battle of Waterloo . All members of the Bonaparte dynasty were forced into exile after
14964-424: The armistice sketch out a "French State" (État français), whose sovereignty and authority in practice were limited to the zone libre , although in theory it administered all of France. The military administration of the occupied zone was in fact a Nazi dictatorship. However, the fiction of French independence was so important to Laval, in particular, that he agreed to requisition French workers for Germany to prevent
15138-464: The armistice, Raphaël Alibert convinced Pétain of the need to rely on Laval, and the two rejoined the government. Pétain obtained the participation of the SFIO by bringing back Albert Rivière and André Février [ fr ] with the agreement of Léon Blum . The following is a list of the French government ministers in the administration of Pétain under the Third Republic. On 10 July 1940,
15312-584: The arts of seduction and romantic affairs, which he used often in his later life. He became friends with the French Ambassador, François-René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand , the father of romanticism in French literature , with whom he remained in contact for many years. He was reunited with his older brother Napoléon-Louis; together they became involved with the Carbonari , secret revolutionary societies fighting Austria's domination of Northern Italy. In
15486-483: The banking system. Napoleon promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, which ended famines in France and made the country an agricultural exporter. He negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier Free Trade Agreement with Britain and similar agreements with France's other European trading partners. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike, the right to organize, and
15660-487: The city is more calm, and not before the elections for the National Assembly ". His close advisors urged him to stay and try to take power, but he wanted to show his prudence and loyalty to the Republic; while his advisors remained in Paris, he returned to London on 2 March 1848 and watched events from there. Louis Napoleon did not run in the first elections for the National Assembly , held in April 1848, but three members of
15834-501: The conservative ministers opposing his projects in favour of the dispossessed. He secured the support of the army, toured the country making populist speeches that condemned the Assembly, and presented himself as the protector of universal male suffrage. He demanded that the law be changed, but his proposal was defeated in the Assembly by a vote of 355 to 348. According to the Constitution of 1848, Louis Napoleon had to step down at
16008-608: The constitution of the Fourth Republic on 13 October 1946 . Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy In World War II , many governments, organizations and individuals collaborated with the Axis powers , "out of conviction, desperation, or under coercion." Nationalists sometimes welcomed German or Italian troops they believed would liberate their countries from colonization. The Danish, Belgian and Vichy French governments attempted to appease and bargain with
16182-430: The country. Strict press censorship was enacted by a decree from 17 February 1852. No newspaper dealing with political or social questions could be published without the permission of the government, fines were increased, and the list of press offenses was expanded. After three warnings, a newspaper or journal could be suspended or even permanently closed. Louis Napoleon wished to demonstrate that his new government had
16356-497: The coup. On the night of 1–2 December, Saint Arnaud's soldiers quietly occupied the national printing office, the Palais Bourbon , newspaper offices, and the strategic points in the city. In the morning, Parisians found posters around the city announcing the dissolution of the National Assembly, the restoration of universal suffrage, new elections, and a state of siege in Paris and the surrounding departments. Sixteen members of
16530-659: The course of the war. Until the German invasion of Russia on 21 June 1941, the national leadership of the French Communist Party (PCF) remained close to the line defined by the Comintern and the Soviet Union , claiming that “the only legitimate struggle is the revolutionary struggle and not the pseudo-resistance of the Gaullists, pawns of British capitalism". Following this logic, relations with
16704-576: The defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and the Bourbon Restoration of monarchy in France. Hortense and Louis Napoleon moved from Aix to Bern to Baden , and finally to a lakeside house at Arenenberg in the Swiss canton of Thurgau . He received some of his education in Germany at the gymnasium school at Augsburg , Bavaria . As a result, for the rest of his life, his French had
16878-477: The defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies at the Battle of Sedan in 1870. Napoleon III was a popular monarch who oversaw the modernization of the French economy and filled Paris with new boulevards and parks. He expanded the French colonial empire , made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and personally engaged in two wars. Maintaining leadership for 22 years, he
17052-399: The delivery of arms to Iraq . In exchange, Darlan asked the Germans for a quid pro quo (reduction of the constraints of the armistice : release of French prisoners, elimination of the demarcation line and fuel oil for the French fleet), which irritated them. On 9 March 1942, Hitler signed the decree endowing France with a " Higher SS and police leader " (HSSPf) responsible for organizing
17226-643: The economy of Britain. He strolled in Hyde Park , which he later used as a model when he created the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. He spent the winter of 1838-39 in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire . Living in the comfort of London, he had not given up the dream of returning to France to seize power. In the summer of 1840 he bought weapons and uniforms and had proclamations printed, gathered
17400-557: The elite of New York society and the writer Washington Irving . While he was traveling to see more of the United States, he received word that his mother was very ill. He hurried as quickly as he could back to Switzerland. He reached Arenenberg in time to be with his mother on 5 August 1837, when she died. She was finally buried in Rueil , in France, next to her mother, on 11 January 1838, but Louis Napoleon could not attend, because he
17574-415: The embassies of the Axis powers : Germany, Italy and Japan. The population of the enclave was about 6,000, including known collaborationist journalists, the writers Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Lucien Rebatet , the actor Robert Le Vigan , and their families, as well as 500 soldiers, 700 French SS, prisoners of war and French civilian forced laborers . Inadequate housing, insufficient food, promiscuity among
17748-451: The end of his term. He sought a constitutional amendment to allow him to succeed himself, arguing that four years were not enough to fully implement his political and economic program. He toured the country and gained support from many of the regional governments and many within the Assembly. The vote in July 1851 was 446 to 278 in favor of changing the law and allowing him to run again, but this
17922-500: The end, the STO caused thousands of young réfractaires to embrace the Resistance, which created the maquis . In the eyes of the French, Laval took ownership of the measures imposed by Sauckel and became the French minister who sent French workers to Germany. The following joined on 16 July 1940: The following joined in September 1940, replacing eight dismissed ministers: The following were appointed on 18 November 1940: Laval
18096-464: The enemy. Estimates of the numbers of victims differ, but historians agree that the number will never be fully known. As a formal legal order returned to France, the informal purges were replaced by l' Épuration légale (legal purge). The most notable, and most demanded, convictions were those of Pierre Laval, tried and executed in October 1945, and Marshal Philippe Pétain, whose 1945 death sentence
18270-509: The evening of 16 June, and President Albert Lebrun called for Pétain to form a new government. Pétain recruited Adrien Marquet for Interior and Pierre Laval for Justice. Laval wanted an offer of Justice. On the advice of François Charles-Roux , the Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs , and with the support of Maxime Weygand and Lebrun, Pétain stood firm, which led Laval to withdraw, followed by Marquet in solidarity. After
18444-508: The face of the German occupation authority, they became unpopular with the public, which blamed them for the German demands they implemented. After the war, several of the Secretaries-General were tried for collaboration. Most were quickly acquitted. Gérard Romsée [ fr ] , the former secretary-general for internal affairs, was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, and Gaston Schuind, Judicial Police of Brussels,
18618-450: The fall of Darlan. Sauckel demanded 250,000 additional workers before the end of July 1942. Laval fell back on his favorite tactic of negotiating, stalling for time, and seeking reciprocation. He proposed the relève , in which a prisoner of war would be freed for every three workers sent to Germany, and announced it 22 June 1942, after the same day, in a letter to Joachim von Ribbentrop , the German minister of foreign affairs, Laval framing
18792-407: The first government of the Vichy régime and kept Pierre Laval on as vice-president of the Council. Laval's administration more or less coincides with the arrival in France of Fritz Sauckel , tasked by Hitler with procuring qualified manpower. Until then, fewer than 100 000 French workers had voluntarily travelled to Germany to work Refusal to send 150 000 skilled workers had been one of the causes of
18966-426: The following day, 10 July, the National Assembly granted absolute power to Pétain, thus ending the French Third Republic . In retaliation for the attack at Mers el Kébir , French aircraft raided Gibraltar on 18 July but did little damage. Pétain established an authoritarian government at Vichy, with central planning a key feature, as well as tight government control. French conventional wisdom, particularly in
19140-444: The fortress Ham for 7 October 1840 contained a concise description of the new prisoner: "Age: thirty-two years. Height: one meter sixty-six. Hair and eyebrows: chestnut. Eyes: Gray and small. Nose: large. Mouth: ordinary. Beard: brown. Moustache: blond. Chin: pointed. Face: oval. Complexion: pale. Head: sunken in his shoulders, and large shoulders. Back: bent. Lips: thick." He had a mistress named Eléonore Vergeot [ fr ] ,
19314-540: The head of the Vichy regime , François Darlan's government was unpopular, a victim of the fool's bargain he had made with the Germans. Darlan committed Vichy into further collaboration with Germany as the least bad solution for him, giving up much ground: handover of the naval bases at Bizerte and Dakar , an air base in Aleppo (Syria), vehicles, artillery and ammunition in North Africa, Tunisia, not to mention
19488-510: The hostility of the German military command and the visceral anti-communism of the Pétain government. Throughout that summer, L’Humanité and the entire communist underground press continued to publish articles preaching “Franco-German brotherhood,” denouncing “British imperialism,” and depicting de Gaulle as a reactionary and war-mongering soldier. Following the Wehrmacht invasion of Russia
19662-533: The invaders in hopes of mitigating harm to their citizens and economies. Some countries' leaders cooperated with Italy and Germany because they wanted to regain territories lost during and after the First World War , or which their nationalist citizens simply coveted. Others such as France already had their own burgeoning fascist movements and/or antisemitic sentiment, and the invaders validated and empowered this. Individuals such as Hendrik Seyffardt in
19836-536: The islands' governments was what they called "correct relations" with the German occupiers. There was no armed or violent resistance by islanders to the occupation. After 1945 allegations of collaboration were investigated. In November 1946, the UK Home Secretary informed the UK House of Commons that most allegations lacked substance. Only twelve cases of collaboration were considered for prosecution, and
20010-514: The last six months of the occupation, Déat, Darnand and Doriot became members of the government. The collaboration of the French police was decisive for the implementation of the Holocaust in occupied France. Germany used French police to maintain order and repress the resistance. The French police were responsible for the census of Jews, their arrest and their assembly in camps from where they were sent abroad to extermination camps. To do this
20184-424: The late king's family to own property in France and annulled the inheritance he had given to his children before he became king. The National Guard, whose members had sometimes joined anti-government demonstrations, was re-organized and largely used only in parades. Government officials were required to wear uniforms at official formal occasions. The Minister of Education was given the power to dismiss professors at
20358-456: The leader of the army, first withdrew his soldiers from Paris to allow the insurgents to deploy their barricades, and then returned with overwhelming force to crush the uprising; from 24 to 26 June, there were battles in the streets of the working class districts of Paris. An estimated five thousand insurgents were killed at the barricades, fifteen thousand were arrested, and four thousand deported. Louis Napoleon's absence from Paris meant that he
20532-452: The leader of the socialists; and Raspail , the leader of the far left wing of the socialists. Louis Napoleon established his campaign headquarters and residence at the Hôtel du Rhin on Place Vendôme . He was accompanied by his companion, Harriet Howard, who gave him a large loan to help finance his campaign. He rarely went to the sessions of the National Assembly and rarely voted. He was not
20706-514: The leadership of Damian Kratzenberg , a German teacher at the Athénée de Luxembourg . It aimed to encourage the population towards a pro-German position, prior to outright annexation, using the slogan Heim ins Reich . In August 1942, Luxembourg was annexed into Nazi Germany, and Luxembourgish men were drafted into the German military. During the Nazi occupation of Monaco , the police arrested and turned over 42 Central European Jewish refugees to
20880-428: The left, from the peasantry and working class. His pamphlet on "The Extinction of Pauperism" was widely circulated in Paris, and his name was cheered with those of the socialist candidates Barbès and Louis Blanc . The Moderate Republican leaders of the provisional government, Lamartine and Cavaignac , considered arresting Louis Napoleon as a dangerous revolutionary, but once again he outmaneuvered them. He wrote to
21054-558: The moment came, he could return to France. In February 1848, Louis Napoleon learned that the French Revolution of 1848 had broken out; Louis Philippe, faced with opposition within his government and army, abdicated. Believing that his time had finally come, he set out for Paris on 27 February, departing England on the same day that Louis-Philippe left France for his own exile in England. When he arrived in Paris, he found that
21228-418: The most easily controlled; Thiers called him "of all the candidates, the least bad". He won the backing of L'Evenement , the newspaper of Victor Hugo, which declared, "We have confidence in him; he carries a great name." His chief opponent, General Cavaignac, expected that Louis Napoleon would come in first, but that he would receive less than fifty percent of the vote, which would mean the election would go to
21402-541: The name of Charles-Louis Napoleon, however, shortly after, Charles was very quick to be removed from his name. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was the first and only president of the French Second Republic , elected in 1848 . He seized power by force in 1851 when he could not constitutionally be re-elected. He later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French and founded the Second Empire , reigning until
21576-437: The occupier were ambiguous. Ronald Tiersky has described the actions of the French communists during that period as "actively collaborating in certain respects". During the early days of the German occupation , the clandestine edition of newspaper L’Humanité called on French workers to fraternise with German soldiers, presenting them not as enemies of the nation but as "class brothers". In June 1940, under instructions from
21750-569: The occupier's ideology. Belgium was invaded by Nazi Germany in May 1940 and occupied until the end of 1944. Political collaboration took separate forms across the Belgian language divide . In Dutch-speaking Flanders , the Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond (Flemish National Union or VNV), clearly authoritarian, anti-democratic and influenced by fascist ideas, became a major player in the German occupation strategy as part of
21924-427: The old age of the workers; to introduce in industrial laws those improvements which do not ruin the rich, but which bring about the well-being of each and the prosperity of all". Louis Napoleon's campaign agents, many of them veterans from Napoleon Bonaparte's army, raised support for him around the country. Louis Napoleon won the grudging endorsement of the conservative leader Adolphe Thiers , who believed he could be
22098-477: The other hand, the intervention in Mexico , which aimed to create a Second Mexican Empire under French protection, ended in total failure. From 1866, Napoleon had to face the mounting power of Prussia as its minister president Otto von Bismarck sought German unification under Prussian leadership. In July 1870, Napoleon reluctantly declared war on Prussia after pressure from the general public. The French Army
22272-476: The others arrested. Both the British and French press heaped ridicule on Louis-Napoleon and his plot. The newspaper Le Journal des Débats wrote, "this surpasses comedy. One doesn't kill crazy people, one just locks them up." He was put on trial, where, despite an eloquent defense of his cause, he was sentenced to life in prison in the fortress of Ham in the Somme department of Northern France. The register of
22446-422: The paramilitaries, and lack of hygiene facilitated the spread of numerous illnesses including flu and tuberculosis ) and a high mortality rate among children, ailments that were treated as best they could by the only two French doctors, Doctor Destouches, alias Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Bernard Ménétrel . On 21 April 1945 General de Lattre ordered his forces to take Sigmaringen. The end came within days. By
22620-667: The party leadership, French communist leaders contacted the German authorities and were received by Otto Abetz , the German ambassador in Paris. They requested the permission to republish L'Humanité, which had been suspended in August 1939 by the Daladier government because of its support for the German-Soviet Pact ; They also demanded the legalisation of the French Communist Party, dissolved in September 1939. The negotiations were not successful due to
22794-485: The penal colony in Cayenne . 9,530 followers were sent to French Algeria , 1,500 were expelled from France, and another 3,000 were given forced residence away from their homes. Soon afterwards, a commission of revision freed 3,500 of those sentenced. In 1859, the remaining 1,800 prisoners and exiles were amnestied, with the exception of the republican leader Ledru-Rollin, who was released from prison but required to leave
22968-418: The poet Lamartine only 17,000 votes. Louis Napoleon won the support of all segments of the population: the peasants unhappy with rising prices and high taxes; unemployed workers; small businessmen who wanted prosperity and order; and intellectuals such as Victor Hugo. He won the votes of 55.6 percent of all registered voters, and won in all but four of France's departments. Louis Napoleon moved his residence to
23142-644: The police requisitioned buses and used the rail network of SNCF trains. In January 1943, Laval established the Milice , a paramilitary police force led by Joseph Darnand that assisted the Gestapo in fighting the Resistance and persecuting Jews, it counted 30,000 members both male and female. In July 1941, the collaborationist parties cooperated in organising and recruiting the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism (LVF), to fight alongside German forces on
23316-582: The pre-war Flemish Movement . VNV politicians were promoted to positions in the Belgian civil administration. VNV and its comparatively moderate stance was increasingly eclipsed later in the war by the more radical and pro-German DeVlag movement. In French-speaking Wallonia , Léon Degrelle 's Rexist Party , a pre-war authoritarian and Catholic Fascist political party, became the VNV's Walloon equivalent, although Rex's Belgian nationalism put it at odds with
23490-511: The president of the provisional government: "I believe I should wait to return to the heart of my country, so that my presence in France will not serve as a pretext to the enemies of the Republic." In June 1848, the June Days Uprising broke out in Paris, led by the far left, against the conservative majority in the National Assembly. Hundreds of barricades appeared in the working-class neighborhoods. General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac ,
23664-571: The previous constitution, outlined in the French Constitutional Laws of 1875 , no longer constrained him. In the wake of the Battle of France that culminated in the disaster at Dunkirk , the French government declared Paris an open city and relocated to Bordeaux on 10 June 1940 to avoid capture. On 22 June, France and Germany signed the Second Armistice at Compiègne . The Vichy government, led by Pétain, replaced
23838-451: The regiment to his side. The prefecture was seized, and the prefect arrested. Unfortunately for Louis-Napoleon, the general commanding the garrison escaped and called in a loyal regiment, which surrounded the mutineers. The mutineers surrendered and Louis-Napoleon fled back to Switzerland. Louis Napoleon was widely popular in exile and his popularity in France continuously grew after his failed coup in 1836 as it established him as heir to
24012-404: The remains of his government, "to assure its legitimate security", and arrested Herriot. On 20 August 1944 Pierre Laval was taken to Belfort by the Germans along with the remains of his government, "to assure its legitimate security". Vichy head of state Marshal Philippe Pétain was conducted against his will to Belfort on 20 August 1944. A governmental commission directed by Fernand de Brinon
24186-495: The resistance movement. Resistance fighters were imprisoned or executed; after the war informants were sentenced to death. Prior to, during and after the war, Denmark enforced a restrictive refugee policy; it handed over to German authorities at least 21 Jewish refugees who managed to cross the border; 18 of them died in concentration camps, including a woman and her three children. In 2005 prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen officially apologized for these policies. Following
24360-606: The right for women to be admitted to a French university. In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and around the world. In Europe, he allied with Britain and defeated Russia in the Crimean War (1853–1856). His regime assisted Italian unification by defeating the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence and later annexed Savoy and Nice through
24534-515: The second Emperor of the French from 1852 until he was deposed on 4 September 1870. Prior to his reign, Napoleon III was known as Louis Napoleon Bonaparte . He was born in Paris as the son of Louis Bonaparte , King of Holland (r. 1806–1810), and Hortense de Beauharnais . Napoleon I was Louis Napoleon's paternal uncle, and one of his cousins was the disputed Napoleon II . It would only be two months following his birth that he, in accordance to Napoleon I's dynastic naming policy, would be bestowed
24708-513: The spring of 1831, when Louis Napoleon was 23, the Austrian and Papal governments launched an offensive against the Carbonari. The two brothers, wanted by the police, were forced to flee. During their flight, Napoléon-Louis contracted measles . He died in his brother's arms on 17 March 1831. Hortense joined Louis Napoleon and together they evaded the police and Austrian army and finally reached
24882-471: The tenth anniversary of the death of Napoleon. The presence of Hortense and Louis Napoleon in the hotel had become known, and a public demonstration of mourning for the Emperor took place on Place Vendôme in front of their hotel. The same day, Hortense and Louis Napoleon were ordered to leave Paris. During their brief stay in Paris Louis Napoleon had become convinced that Bonapartist sentiment
25056-594: The term collaborationist to describe those who collaborated for ideological reasons. Bertram Gordon, a professor of modern history, also used the terms collaborationist and collaborator for ideological and non-ideological collaboration. Collaboration described cooperation, sometimes passive, with a victorious power. Stanley Hoffmann saw collaboration as either involuntary, a reluctant recognition of necessity, or voluntary, opportunistic , or greedy. He also categorized collaborationism as "servile", attempting to be useful, or "ideological", full-throated advocacy of
25230-583: The terms of the armistice France was allowed a small army to defend itself and to administer its colonies. Most of these colonies simply recognized the shift in power, but their allegiance to Vichy shifted once the Allies invaded North Africa in Operation Torch . Britain however outraged the French by bombing their fleet because the British were unwilling to risk it falling into Axis hands. Alsace-Lorraine , which France and Germany had long disputed,
25404-722: The theatre and hunted, renewed his acquaintance with Benjamin Disraeli, and met Charles Dickens . He went back to his studies at the British Museum . He had an affair with the actress Rachel , the most famous French actress of the period, during her tours to Britain. More important for his future career, he had an affair with the wealthy heiress Harriet Howard (1823–1865). They met in 1846, soon after his return to Britain. They began to live together, she took in his two illegitimate children and raised them with her own son, and she provided financing for his political plans so that, when
25578-449: The transfer of Danish army units to the German military. World War I hero Marshal Philippe Pétain became the head of the post-democratic French State (État Français) , governed not from Paris but from Vichy , when the French Third Republic collapsed after the Battle of France . Prime minister Paul Reynaud resigned rather than sign the resulting armistice agreement. The National Assembly then gave Pétain absolute power to call
25752-472: The uprising was short-lived. Paris was declared in a state of siege, the headquarters of the uprising was surrounded, and the leaders arrested. Ledru-Rollin fled to England, Raspail was arrested and sent to prison, the republican clubs were closed, and their newspapers closed down. The National Assembly, now without the left republicans and determined to keep them out forever, proposed a new election law that placed restrictions on universal male suffrage, imposing
25926-506: The uprisings were swiftly crushed, with the killing of an estimated 300 to 400 opponents of the coup. There were also small uprisings in the more militant red republican towns in the south and center of France, but these were all put down by 10 December. Louis Napoleon followed the self-coup by a period of repression of his opponents, aimed mostly at the red republicans. About 26,000 people were arrested, including 4,000 in Paris alone. The 239 inmates who were judged most severely were sent to
26100-547: The war. Dewoitine was eventually named head of Aérospatiale , which created the Concorde airplane. Luxembourg was invaded by Nazi Germany in May 1940 and remained under German occupation until early 1945. Initially, the country was governed as a distinct region as the Germans prepared to assimilate its Germanic population into Germany itself. The Volksdeutsche Bewegung (VdB) was founded in Luxembourg in 1941 under
26274-402: The younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte , who made Louis the king of Holland from 1806 until 1810. His mother was Hortense de Beauharnais , the only daughter of Napoleon's wife Joséphine by her first marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais . He was the first Bonaparte prince born after the proclamation of the empire . As empress, Joséphine had proposed the marriage of Louis and Hortense as
26448-661: Was an important decision-maker in the extermination of Jews, the Romani Holocaust , and of other "undesirables." Following an increasingly restrictive series of anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic measures, such as the Second law on the status of Jews , Vichy opened a series of internment camps in France — such as one at Drancy — where Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and political opponents were interned. The French police directed by René Bousquet , under increasing German pressure, helped to deport 76,000 Jews (both directly and via
26622-539: Was born prematurely, (at least) three weeks short of nine months. Hortense was known to have lovers and Louis Napoleon's enemies, including Victor Hugo , spread the gossip that he was the child of a different man, but most historians agree today that he was the legitimate son of Louis Bonaparte. Louis Napoleon was baptized at the Palace of Fontainebleau on 5 November 1810, with Emperor Napoleon serving as his godfather and Empress Marie-Louise as his godmother. His father stayed away, once again separated from Hortense. At
26796-502: Was convinced that he had been given a public mandate to rule. Following the returns, many challenged the validity of such an implausibly lopsided result. One such critic was Victor Hugo, who had originally supported Louis Napoleon but had been infuriated by the coup d'état, departed for Brussels on 11 December 1851. He became the most bitter critic of Louis Napoleon, rejected the amnesty offered to him, and did not return to France for twenty years. The 1851 referendum gave Louis Napoleon
26970-435: Was counting on to "block the deportation machine". Many businesses working for Germany were removed from Sauckel's requisition. Individuals were protected but the French economy as a whole was integrated into that of Germany. In November 1943, Sauckel demanded, without much success, 900 000 additional workers. On orders from Berlin, French workers stopped leaving for Germany on 7 June 1944, after Allied landings in Normandy. In
27144-442: Was in Paris, and he was convinced that, if he marched to Paris, as Napoleon Bonaparte had done in 1815 during the Hundred Days , France would rise up and join him. He began to plan a coup against King Louis-Philippe . He planned for his uprising to begin in Strasbourg . The colonel of a regiment was brought over to the cause. On 29 October 1836, Louis Napoleon arrived in Strasbourg, in the uniform of an artillery officer; he rallied
27318-478: Was in power, during which Pétain even considered taking Laval back, however Laval was now no longer interested in anything other than supreme power. The impasse was lifted after the Germans had a change of heart with respect to Darlan, although not toward Flandin who they considered insufficiently collaborationist, and this led to Flandin's resignation on 9 February 1941, and Darlan's accession. The majority of ministers, secretaries, and delegates were carried over from
27492-473: Was later acquitted during the legal purge in Norway after World War II in two highly publicized trials that remain controversial. Nasjonal Samling had very little support among the population at large and Norway was one of few countries where resistance during World War II was widespread before the turning point of the war in 1942–43. After the war, Quisling was executed by firing squad. His name became an international eponym for " traitor ". After
27666-476: Was later commuted to life imprisonment on the Bréton Yeu , where he died in 1951. Several decades later, a few surviving ex-collaborators such as Paul Touvier were tried for crimes against humanity. René Bousquet was rehabilitated and regained some influence in French politics, finance and journalism, but was nonetheless investigated in 1991 for deporting Jews. He was assassinated in 1993 just before his trial would have begun. Maurice Papon served as prefect of
27840-477: Was living in virtual imprisonment at the court of Vienna under the title Duke of Reichstadt. Next in line was Louis Napoleon's eldest uncle, Joseph Bonaparte , followed by Louis Bonaparte, but neither Joseph nor Louis had any interest in re-entering public life. When the Duke of Reichstadt died in 1832, Louis Napoleon became the de facto heir of the dynasty and the leader of the Bonapartist cause. In exile with his mother in Switzerland, Louis Napoleon enrolled in
28014-430: Was not allowed into France. Louis Napoleon returned to London for a new period of exile in October 1838. He had inherited a large fortune from his mother and took a house with 17 servants and several of his old friends and fellow conspirators. He was received by London society and met the political and scientific leaders of the day, including Benjamin Disraeli and Michael Faraday . He also did considerable research into
28188-451: Was not connected either with the uprising, or with the brutal repression that had followed. He was still in London on 17–18 September, when the elections for the National Assembly were held, but he was a candidate in thirteen departments. He was elected in five departments; in Paris, he received 110,000 votes of the 247,000 cast, the highest number of votes of any candidate. He returned to Paris on 24 September, and this time he took his place in
28362-415: Was proclaimed on 6 September. On 7 September, they were taken ahead of the advancing Allied Forces out of France to the town of Sigmaringen, where they arrived on the 8th, where other Vichy officials were already present. Hitler requisitioned the Sigmaringen Castle for use by top officials. This was then occupied and used by the Vichy government-in-exile from September 1944 to April 1945. Pétain resided at
28536-406: Was rapidly defeated, and Napoleon was captured at Sedan . He was swiftly dethroned and the Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris. After he was released from German custody, he went into exile in England, where he died in 1873. Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Louis Napoleon and then Napoleon III, was born in Paris on the night of 19–20 April 1808. His father was Louis Bonaparte ,
28710-401: Was replaced by Felix Gouin of the French Section of the Workers' International ( Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière , SFIO ). Only the French Communist Party ( Parti communiste français , PCF ) and the socialist SFIO supported the draft constitution, which envisaged a form of unicameralism . This constitution was rejected in the 5 May 1946 referendum . French voters adopted
28884-413: Was sacked by Pétain on 13 December 1940. This came as a surprise to Laval. He was replaced by a triumvirate of Flandin, Darlan, and General Charles Huntziger . This caused friction with Hitler's representative Otto Abetz , who was furious about Vichy's insufficient collaboration, and closed the demarcation line in response. The second government of Pierre-Étienne Flandin was the second government of
29058-611: Was sentenced to five. Many former secretaries-general had careers in politics after the war. Victor Leemans served as a senator from the centre-right Christian Social Party (PSC-CVP) and became president of the European Parliament . Belgian police have also been accused of collaborating, especially in the Holocaust . Towards the end of the war, militias of collaborationist parties actively carried out reprisals for resistance attacks or even assassinations. Those assassinations included leading figures suspected of resistance involvement or sympathy, such as Alexandre Galopin , head of
29232-434: Was short of the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution. Louis Napoleon believed that he was supported by the people and he chose to retain power by other means. His half-brother Charles, duc de Morny , and a few close advisors quietly began to organize a coup d'état . They included minister of war Jacques Leroy de Saint Arnaud and officers from the French Army in North Africa to provide military backing for
29406-412: Was simply annexed. When Allied forces landed in North Africa under Operation Torch , Germany's response was to annex the free zone in Case Anton . The Philippe Pétain administration was the last administration of the French Third Republic, succeeding on 16 June 1940 to Paul Reynaud's cabinet. It formed in the middle of the Battle of France debacle, when Nazi Germany invaded France at the beginning of
29580-428: Was steadily increasing in France; Napoleon I was the subject of heroic poems, books and plays. Huge crowds had gathered in Paris on 15 December 1840 when the remains of Napoleon were returned with great ceremony to Paris and handed over to King Louis Philippe, while Louis Napoleon could only read about it in prison. On 25 May 1846, with the assistance of his doctor and other friends on the outside, he disguised himself as
29754-462: Was still strong among the French people and the army. They went to Britain briefly, and then back into exile in Switzerland. Ever since the fall of Napoleon in 1815, a Bonapartist movement had existed in France, hoping to return a Bonaparte to the throne. According to the law of succession established by Napoleon I, the claim passed first to his own son, declared "King of Rome" at birth by his father. This heir, known by Bonapartists as Napoleon II ,
29928-462: Was the first administration formed by Pétain under the Vichy regime after the vote of 10 July 1940 ceded full constituent powers to Pétain. The government ended on 13 December 1940 with Laval's dismissal. This administration was not recognized as legitimate by the Empire Defense Council of the government of Free France , which the British Government had quickly recognized as the legitimate government of France following De Gaulle's radio appeals to
30102-423: Was the longest-reigning French head of state since the fall of the Ancien Régime , although his reign would ultimately end upon his surrender to Otto Von Bismarck and Wilhelm I on 2 September 1870. Napoleon III commissioned a grand reconstruction of Paris carried out by prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann . He expanded and consolidated the railway system throughout the nation and modernized
30276-399: Was unpopular and had strengthened ties with Vichy forces, in an expanded collaboration with Germany which seemed to him the least bad solution, and had conceded a great deal, turning over the naval bases at Bizerte and Dakar , an air base in Aleppo in Syria, as well as vehicles, artillery and ammunition in North Africa and Tunisia, in addition to arming the Iraqis. In exchange Darlan wanted
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