Hitlers Europe 1081the country, the German occupation gave the fascist leagues influence they
had not had before the war. France had been divided by Germany in June
1940 into an occupied /one and a smaller southern zone that retained inde
pendence through collaboration with the Nazis. The free zone had its capi
tal in the spa town of Vichy in central France, although in November 1942
German troops occupied all of France. The xenophobia and anti-Semitism
of the right-wing French politicians and writers of the 1930s came to
fruition in Vichy. Traditional conservatives dissatisfied with the Third Repub
lic for religious and political reasons also lent their support to the Vichy
regime.
The elderly Marshal Petain served as the head of state of the Vichy gov
ernment, which the United States officially recognized. He remained pop
ular, at least until late 1942, because some people shared his anti-Marxism
and anti-Semitism. He presented himself as having saved the French state
from extinction at the hands of the German invaders.
But although Vichy may have temporarily saved the French state, Petain
and other collaborators sacrificed the French nation. In the “new order,”
“country, family, work” replaced “liberty, fraternity, equality” on French
coins. Vichy proclaimed a “spiritual revival” against “decadence.” Petain dis
solved the Chamber of Deputies and favored the Catholic Church by ban
ning Masonic lodges and divorce. As in Mussolini’s Italy, Vichy attempted to
impose a structure of “corporatism” on the French economy and society, but
with little success. These vertical economic structures were intended to
replace unions, which, as in Germany and Italy, became illegal.