page_title: Vichy France
section_title: Collaborationnistes
hierarchical_section_title: Vichy France / Collaborationnistes
context_page_description: Vichy France is the common name of the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Evacuated from Paris to Vichy in the unoccupied "Free Zone" in the southern part of Metropolitan France, it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as her colonies. At this time, most of Metropolitan France was under German occupation, as a part of the ''Occupied Zone''.
  From 1940 to 1942, while the Vichy regime was the nominal government of all of France except for Alsace-Lorraine, the Germans and Italians militarily occupied northern and south-eastern France. While Paris remained the de jure capital of France, the government chose to relocate to the town of Vichy, 360 km to the south in the zone libre, which thus became the de facto capital of the French State. Following the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942, southern France was also militarily occupied by Germany and Italy to protect the Mediterranean coastline. Petain's government remained in Vichy as the nominal government of France, albeit one that collaborated with Nazi Germany from November 1942 onwards.
context_section_description: Stanley Hoffmann in 1974, and after him, other historians such as Robert Paxton and Jean-Pierre Azéma have used the term collaborationnistes to refer to fascists and Nazi sympathisers who, for ideological reasons, wished a reinforced collaboration with Hitler's Germany. Examples of these are Parti Populaire Français (PPF) leader Jacques Doriot, writer Robert Brasillach or Marcel Déat. A principal motivation and ideological foundation among collaborationnistes was anticommunism. Collaborationnisme (collaborationism) should be distinguished from collaboration. Collaboration refers to those of the French who for whatever reason collaborated with the Germans whereas collaborationism refers to those, primarily from the fascist right, who embraced the goal of a German victory as their own.
  Organizations such as La Cagoule opposed the Third Republic, particularly when the left-wing Popular Front was in power.
  Collaborationists may have influenced the Vichy government's policies, but ultra-collaborationists never comprised the majority of the government before 1944.
  To enforce the régime's will, some paramilitary organisations were created. A notable example was the "Légion Française des Combattants" (LFC) (French Legion of Fighters), including at first only former combatants, but quickly adding "Amis de la Légion" and cadets of the Légion, who had never seen battle, but who supported Pétain's régime. The name was then quickly changed to "Légion Française des Combattants et des volontaires de la Révolution Nationale" (French Legion of Fighters and Volunteers of the National Revolution). Joseph Darnand created a "Service d'Ordre Légionnaire" (SOL), which consisted mostly of French supporters of the Nazis, of which Pétain fully approved.
caption: Légion des Volontaires fighting with the Axis on the Eastern front
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