Coming to terms with les années noires
Coming to terms with les années noires
Coming to terms with the events of les années noires has been a
difficult process for many in France. This difficulty is largely due to
the trauma of four years of Nazi occupation. France's military and
political collapse in 1940, the emergence of the collaborationalist Vichy
régime and its shameful complicity in Nazi repression and the deportation
of 76,000 Jews resident in France, and a virtual civil war, une guerre
franco-française, particularly violent by the summer of in 1944, all
contributed to what the historian Henry Rousso has called le syndrome
de Vichy. Rousso defined this `syndrome' thus:
Rousso argues that attitudes to and debates about les années noires
have gone through four distinct chronological stages defined by the
specifics of the political priorities and developments of each respective
period:
From Liberation in 1944 to the amnisties of 1954, France was engaged in
dealing with the aftermath of occupation and the virtual civil war that
took place during that period. This was a process, as Rousso suggests, of
unfinished mourning (un deuil inachevé). It was relatively easy -
if mourning the loss of those close to you can be described thus - for
French men and women to enter the process of mourning for the 1,500,000
fatalities of the First World War. Up and down the country, in cities,
towns and villages all over France war memorials sprang up to commemorate
French losses - the million and a half dead on the so-called champs
d'honneur.
The Second World War was an entirely different matter. There were far
fewer losses at an estimated 600,000 fatalities However, the precise
nature of these deaths was a much more complex matter. Around 200,000 died
during military action (about 90,000 in 1939-40 alone). The Vichy régime
itself was responsible for the death of 135,000 people, including the
deportation of 76,000 Jews of which only 3% returned. The Resistance too
was responsible for an estimated 10,000 killings. After the war during
trials, around 7,000 were sentenced to death but only 767 were eventually
executed.
The immediate aftermath of liberartion saw a spontaneous settling of
scores with summary executions commonplace (l'épuration). There
were trials too, with charges brought against and prosecution of
collaborators like the writer and intellectual Robert Brassilach. Economic
collaborators tended to escape - France clearly needed its entrepreneurs
and captains of industry however much they may have compromised themselves
during the war. One notable exception to this was Louis Renault.
The period immediately folling liberation then represented an imperfect
coming-to-terms with the past that ignored, for example, the anti-semitism
of Vichy and its complicity in the deportation of 76,000 Jews. Collabos were judged to be traitors to France rather than French
fascists. The entire question of collaboration, argues Rousso, was
couched in patriotic rather than political terms.
A tension emerged between desire to celebrate glorious or heroic actions
(of the resistance) and to forget the shameful (of the collaborators). The
memory and consequent memorialization of Nazis atrocities centered on
crimes committed against the French like the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane
(near Limoges in south-west France), rather than the so-called grande
rafle du Vél d'hiv' in Paris. The village martyr of
Oradour-sur-Glane was visited by De Gaulle in 1945 who ordered that it be
preserved for posterity as a memorial to Nazi aggression. The Vélodrome
d'Hiver sports stadium on the rue Nelaton near the quai de Grenelle, on
the other hand, was demolished. Similarly, the horror of the Nazi
concentration camps centered on Buchenwald where resisters and politicals
were held, and not Auschwitz-Birkenau where Jews and gypsies formed the
bulk of the detainees.
In this difficult period new fault lines emerged. The postwar trial of 22
soldiers of the Das Reich regiment, 14 of whom were Alsacian
malgré-nous, who took part in the massacre of the villagers of
Oradour is a good example of this. The fault line here was geographical
rather than ideological, and revealed the different forms of humiliation
and suffering experienced during les années noires. Many Alasacians
had felt that they had suffered enough during the war and were reluctant
to see former malgré-nous in the dock, dragging up old memories of
past crimes. The relatives of those murdered at Oradour were, on the other
hand, keen to see justice done at last and those responsible for the
massacre sentenced for their crimes against unarmed civilians (including
an eight-day old baby).
The period between 1954 and 1971 are the years of the Gaullist 5th
Republic which sought to silence any reminder of past divisions. The
amnesties of 1951-53 had sought to mark a clean break with the past and
herald a new beginning.
The period was that of les trente glorieuses, and, more
specifically, of la République gaullienne. This was a period of
increasing affluence in which more and more French men and women enjoyed
the fruits of postwar prosperity. One witnesses the creation of a myth to
play down divisions and allow repression of reality , were the years of
the political dominance of Charles de Gaulle. During this period, a myth
about occupied France was constructed. This was known as the `Gaullist
myth'. The `Gaullist myth' can be summarised in a number of central tenets or
beliefs:
Paris! Paris outragé! Paris brisé! Paris martyrisé! Mais Paris libéré!
Libéré par lui-même, libéré par son peuple avec le concours des armées de
la France, avec l'appui et le concours de la France tout entière, de la
France qui se bat, de la seule France, de la vraie France, de la France
éternelle.
Je dis d'abord de ses devoirs, et je les résumerai tous en disant que,
pour le moment, il s'agit de devoirs de guerre. L'ennemi chancelle mais il
n'est pas encore battu. Il reste sur notre sol. Il ne suffira même pas que
nous l'ayons, avec le concours de nos chers et admirables alliés, chassé
de chez nous pour que nous nous tenions pour satisfaits après ce qui s'est
passé. Nous voulons entrer sur son territoire, comme il se doit, en
vainqueurs. C'est pour cela que l'avant-garde française est entrée à Paris
à coups de canon. C'est pour cela que la grande armée française d'Italie a
débarqué dans le Midi et remonte rapidement la vallée du Rhône. C'est pour
cela que nos braves et chères forces de l'intérieur vont s'armer d'armes
modernes.
C'est pour cette revanche, cette vengeance et cette justice, que nous
continuerons de nous battre jusqu'au dernier jour, jusqu'au jour de la
victoire totale et complète. Ce devoir de guerre, tous les hommes qui sont
ici et tous ceux qui nous entendent en France savent qu'il exige l'unité
nationale. Nous autres, qui aurons vécu les plus grandes heures de notre
Histoire, nous n'avons pas à vouloir autre chose que de nous montrer
jusqu'à la fin, dignes de la France.
Vive la France!
(L'allocution de général de Gaulle à l'Hôtel de Ville le soir du 25 août
1944)
Some historians use the term la France résistante or le résistancialisme
to describe this myth. Historians and critics had proposed a number of
explanations for the `Gaullist Myth':
The `Gaullist myth' tended, as a result, to minimize the active role of Vichy
and the support it commanded amongst the French population as a whole and
created a new object of memory, the Resistance which reconciled different
groups (e.g. Gaullists and Communists).
The period from 1972 until 1980 sees the return of the repressed, le
retour du refoulé. What had been smothered under a reassuring myth of
national resistance returned, and returned with unexpected vehemence.
According to Henry Rousso's overview of postwar attitudes to les années
noires (Rousso: 1990), the period between 1954 and 1971 (le
refoulement) are years when the Gaullist 5th Republic sought to
silence any reminder of past divisions. As Rousso comments:
Le Chagrin et la pitié is a long documentary - 4 hours and 16
minutes to be exact - and is composed of a variety of interviews and
archive materials like photographs, old newsreels, film clips and recorded
speeches with a soundtrack of contemporary music from performers such as
Georges Brassens, Charles Azanavour etc..
It concentates on the town of Clermont-Ferrand - not far from Vichy - and
primarily, although not exclusively, on the attitudes of its inhabitants
towards the main events and developments that took place in France during
the Occupation. The France it represents is far from the comforting image
of the so-called `Gaullist myth' A divided France in which a variety of
opposing attitudes. For this representation of France Ophüls and his
colleagues were accused of being fouilleurs de merde and videurs
de poubelles.
By 1980 and the beginning of the Mitterand years, the repression and
reassessment of les années noires had turned into an obsession.
Every month a new revelation about the period of Occupation would appear and
dominate the news agenda.
The trials of Klaus Barbie (1987), of Paul Touvier (1994), Maurice Papon
(1997-8) and, more recently still, the attempted extradition of Aloïs
Brunner from Syria to face a trial for crimes against humanity in France
(1999) have also served to give the Occupation a continued high
media profile.
This intensified in the 1990s with the fiftieth anniversary of the years of
Occupation and the growing importance of what historians call la mémoire
juive.
Introduction
Le syndrome de Vichy est l'ensemble hétérogènes des symptômes, des
manifestations, en particulier dans la vie politique, sociale et
culturelle, qui révèlent l'existence du traumatisme engendré par
l'Occupation, particulièrement lié aux divisions internes, traumatisme qui
s'est maintenu, parfois développé, après la fin des événements. (Rousso:
1990 18-19)
The `Vichy syndrome', then, is Rousso's shorthand for France's difficult
coming-to-terms with les années noires and the conflicts that were
created, exacerbated, or continued between 1940 and 1944. Rousso's
argument is that, for many, those conflicts remain unfinished business
with many French people unreconciled to their own history.
1945-1953: Unfinished Mourning (le deuil inachevé)
1954-1971: Repressed Memory (le refoulement)
In his famous victory speech to a newly liberated Paris on the 25 August
1944, de Gaulle proclaimed that Paris was liberated by the unified
efforts of the French:
Pourquoi voulez-vous que nous dissimulions l'émotion qui nous étreint
tous, hommes et femmes, qui sommes ici, chez nous, dans Paris debout pour
se libérer et qui a su le faire de ses mains. Non ! Nous ne dissimulerons
pas cette émotion profonde et sacrée. Il y a là des minutes qui dépassent
chacune de nos pauvres vies.
In a later speech on the 31 December 1944 he repeated this view:
Sauf un nombre infime de malheureux qui ont consciemment préféré le
triomphe de l'ennemi à la victoire de la France et qu'il appartient à la
Justice de l'État de châtier équitablement, la masse immense des Français
n'a jamais voulu autre chose que le bien de la patrie, lors même que
beaucoup furent égarés sur le chemin. Au point où nous en sommes et étant
donné tout ce qu'il reste à faire pour nous sauver, nous relever et nous
aggrandir, les fureurs intestines, les querelles, les invectives sont
injustes et malfaisantes.
These speeches are essential to our understanding of the so-called
`Gaullist myth' that emerged after the Liberation.
1972-1980: The Broken Mirror (le miroir brisé)
Le Général avait pratiqué tour à tour l'exorcisme de Vichy, et l'histoire
sainte et édifiante de la Résistance (Rousso: 1990 p.120)
However, a number of developments after 1968 unsettled the image many
French people had of the period of Occupation. Amongst the most important
developments were the release of Marcel Ophüls' Le Chagrin et la
pitié in 1969 and Louis Malle's Lacombe Lucien in 1973 and the
French translation of Robert Paxton's Vichy France: Old Guard and New
Order 1940-1944 (La France de Vichy) in 1972. These all played,
in their different ways, an important role in ushering in a new period in
France's troubled relation to its wartime past, the period Rousso calls
that of le miroir brisé.
1980-present: obsession
Further Reading
The University of Sunderland
Last Update 9-Dec-99