We follow the life of Marshal Pétain in Vichy during the period 1940-1944. The old man, both lucid and affected by age—he is 84 years old—governs or at least tries to govern the country. Surrounded by traitors, he himself sometimes betrays, either consciously or unconsciously. He is, in fact, a prisoner of the Germans and his own entourage.
Raymond Tournoux thus opens the secret book of Vichy to us with diplomatic documents, correspondences, and declarations from various actors of the war. We discover Churchill, Hitler, De Gaulle, Roosevelt, Stalin, neutral, and belligerent diplomats.
Vichy becomes a curious hub with ’embassies’ where diplomacy intertwines with intrigue. There is Laval, who pushes collaboration to the point of betrayal, and Darlan, who wants to save the fleet and will lose it by refusing to let it leave Toulon. In Algeria, everything plays out between the Admiral and two generals. Darlan is assassinated by a young man who is quickly executed so that he cannot speak.
All these intrigues, palace revolutions, the dismissal, the recall of Laval; Vichy was part of France, but was it sovereign? This operetta-like state collapses while the world is divided by the three victors: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin.
This work is a wonderful tool, richly documented to help us better understand this dark period of our history that no one should wish to relive.
