User:Hic vitam est ridiculum/Purges by the Vichy regime

The purge carried out by the Vichy regime concerned, from 1940 to 1944:


 * those opposed to the regime - Gaullists, communists and resistance fighters - who risked imprisonment and execution;
 * Freemasons, who were driven out of their employment in the public sector and whose names were published by the press;
 * Jews, who were driven out of their employments in the public sector, the education sector, banned from the majority of jobs, and whose businesses were "Aryanized". Many foreign Jews were imprisoned by the gendarmerie or the French police in the Drancy camp, the Gurs camp, the Pithiviers camp, etc., before being handed over to the German authorities.

This official purge, certain aspects of which were considered "Aryanization", manifested itself notably in the implementation of the Vichy anti-Jewish legislation by the official Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs.

Camille Mauclair noted in 1944 in The Crisis of Modern Art:

"The Jewish galleries are closed, sequestered or confided to Aryan liquidators... The Jewish critics have been excluded from newspapers... The Jewish painters and sculptors are excluded from salons and galleries... All of this is excellent. However the purge is far from being finished. The Jewish poison will only be eliminated slowly." "Les galeries juives sont closes, mises sous séquestre ou confiées à des liquidateurs aryens… Les critiques juifs ont été exclus des journaux… Les peintres et sculpteurs juifs sont exclus des salons et des galeries… Tout cela est excellent. Cependant l’épuration est loin d’être achevée. Le poison juif ne s’éliminera que lentement." In this way Simone de Beauvoir, teacher at the Camille-Sée lycée Camille-Sée, had to sign, like the majority of her colleagues, a document where she confirmed she was neither affiliated with Freemasonry nor had Jewish ancestors. (She was dismissed in 1939 from her post at the lycée Molière (16th arrondissement) for a homosexual relationship with one of her students, Bianca Bienenfeld).

Sacha Guitry, Charles Trenet and Gaby Morlay were among those who had to defend themselves from the accusation that they were Jewish, in response to the denunciation campaigns started by the antisemitic press. On the other hand, Jean-Paul Sartre benefited from a post left vacant by an evicted Jewish colleague.

The newspapers that favoured collaboration, for instance Maurras' Action française, incessantly demanded an increase in severity of the purge, notably in the worlds of theatre, cinema and the press, and against the French Resistance.

The official purge was effectively stimulated not only by the Vichyste authorities, their police force and their gendarmerie, but mainly by the most persistant partisans of the collaboration grouped in the French Legion of Veterans, the Service d’ordre légionnaire (SOL), then the Milice, which committed multiple assassinations and fought, under German orders, against the Maquis.

Another wave of purges took place during the Liberation, targeting the people engaged in collaboration with the Nazis.