Owing to the changing international context, including the June 1941 invasion of the USSR, and deterioration of popular support for the Vichy regime, Marshal Philippe Pétain decided to speed up the process. He thus announced on the radio, prior to the beginning of the trial, that he would himself condemn the guilty parties after having heard the advice of the Political Justice Council ("Conseil de justice politique") which he had set up. Pétain was entitled to such an act after the Constitutional decree of 27 January 1941. The newly created Political Justice Council handed in its conclusions on 16 October 1941. After Pétain's condemnation of the political responsibles, the Riom Trial was supposed to try the men as citizens. Although the president of the court, Pierre Caous, declared at the outset that the trial was not to be a political one, it was widely seen as a show trial, in France and abroad.