The French Resistance

Were we terrorists? History, terrorism, and the French Resistance

“…Even the communist party, which would later endorse guerrilla warfare against the Occupier, did not admit responsibility for its attacks until Summer 1942. Until that point the party had described certain acts of violent resistance (such as the August 1941 killing of German soldier Moser by Pierre Georges in a Parisian Metro station) as either a response to German provocation or the result of internecine conflict between collaborators (Liaigre, ; Wieviorka, ). Resistance groups worked to reframe their own violence in a more palatable fashion, as military operations.…”

“…Secondly, historians have tended to classify the resistance's armed struggle according to military or paramilitary categories such as “urban guerrilla,” “partisan warfare,” “subversive warfare,” and “civil war.” The use of the term terrorism to describe resistance violence is rejected out of hand because this violence was neither indiscriminate nor directed at civilians (Bédarida, ; Marcot, Le Roux, & Levisse‐Touze, ; Wieviorka, ). Olivier Wieviorka () goes so far as to describe the resistance strategy as “counterterrorism” against the terrorist regimes of Vichy and the Nazi occupier. Ultimately, it is difficult to escape the moral question inherent to examining the resistance and its violence.…”

Genocide and the Defeat of Memory

“…In short, as historian Olivier Wieviorka has noted, the national myth was dominated "by the lofty figure of the soldier in the army of shadows." 15 Disputing this orthodox narrative of the Resistance, recent studies have considered alternate scenarios that have sought to challenge it: that it was not a widespread and popular movement, as only a small proportion of the population participated in armed combat; that many members of the Resistance were betrayed by their own countrymen and countrywomen, as arguably the majority acquiesced in the reality of German occupation; that notwithstanding the hype, the Resistance inflicted comparatively little damage on German forces, with most activity being small-scale in nature and consisting largely of spying and sabotage; that armed Resistance was not unifying, but rather a divided movement split along political and ideological lines; that de Gaulle exploited the armed movement to consolidate his own power, and that he, in turn, was regarded with suspicion by many in the Resistance; and finally, that for many in the Resistance, the movement existed both to defeat the Germans and also to prepare the way for a changed post-war French social and political system. 16 A battle over the control of memory, in short, has overtaken the narrative of resistance to genocide, and, with it, the nature of victimization and responses to it.…”

Religion in Vichy France: How Meso-Level Actors Contribute to Authoritarian Legitimation

“…coded discourse, framing Jews as national outsiders, such as when he proclaimed in September 1940 that "true fraternity" in France was "possible only in natural groups such as the family, the ancient towns, [and] the nation" [Marrus andPaxton (1981) 1995: 17]. 6 Further, according to several historians [e.g., Adler 2001;Bédarida 1998;Burrin 1996;Le Moigne 2005;Marrus andPaxton (1981) 1995;Paxton 1972;Rousso 1991;Vinen 2006;Wieviorka 2016], as well as the perspective taken here, whether state anti-Semitism was overtly promulgated or covertly advanced, the National Revolution of Pétain's Vichy regime was concomitant with violence against Jews from its very inception. 7 And yet, despite (or perhaps because of) the crisis of the summer of 1940, it was not a given that Vichy would be able to reorganize French society as it wished.…”