Talk:Philippe Pétain

message: This has been in the news lately courtesy of M Macron, with a fair bit of nonsense being talked, eg. that Petain personally ordered the deportation of Jewish children to death camps (nope, that was Laval in Vichy and the out-and-out collaborationists in Paris). At the moment we have a claim in the intro that he was the French equivalent of Vidkun Quisling (who was little more than a German puppet), a claim explicitly denied by, I think, Julian Jackson.
It is fair to say that Petain was chief among those who pushed for an armistice in June 1940. Like the German armistice of 1918 it turned out to be much harsher than had been hoped, with most of the French Army being made to lay down their arms, although it preserved the French fleet and kept the Axis out of Algeria and a third of France. The plan was to eventually negotiate a proper peace treaty which would enable the return of the POWs from Germany, although that never happened.
Petain was initially given enormous powers in the new regime and a massive personality cult developed around him (clearly a psychological reaction to the sudden, catastrophic defeat). But he was already in his mid-80s and in physical and mental decline, and became more and more of a figurehead. As time went on, the regime collaborated more and more with Germany (including deportations of Jews and forced labourers). Although he had initially been happy enough (as far as I know) with Vichy's anti-Jewish laws, things went a lot further than he would have liked but he didn't do much more about it than wring his hands and whinge.
His trial, which he returned voluntarily to face (de Gaulle would have been happy for him to end his days in exile) against a backdrop of the return of the starving forced labourers, was always a bit of a joke. It was likened at the time to the trials of Marie Antoinette and Marshal Ney. He wasn't tried for out-and-out collaboration (deportation of Jews and forced labourers etc) because so many people had been involved in that that it was thought best not to get into it. He was tried on the charges that the armistice of June 1940 had been a shameful "surrender" akin to that of Bazaine at Metz in 1870 (this in turn was a follow-on from the Riom Trials during the war at which the Vichy regime had tried to pin the blame for France's defeat on various people like Daladier and Gamelin), and on the illegality of the dissolution of the Third Republic in July 1940 (even though most French politicians who had still been around voted in favour). Some politicians attacked him in their evidence (Reynaud, Herriot) only to have their own initial sympathies for Vichy exposed. The three professional judges wanted to acquit him as the charges were unproven, but were outvoted by the lay members, who had been drawn from among former Resisters and politicians who had been opposed to the July 1940 vote.
His reputation has always been a lot more mixed than bad political rhetoric would have us believe - one of his biographers publishes opinion polls from over the years. The official line was always that he was "the shield" who stayed behind to do what he could to protect France until the storm had passed, and that his show trial was a monstrous injustice perpetrated on a frail old man. Fewer people believe that nowadays than used to be the case, but as recently as the late 1990s I had a French flatmate who told me that his grandparents were big Petain fans and had very much believed that.
The general tone of modern biographies (Griffith early 70s, Atkin 1997 etc) tends to be that he was a silly, vain old fool who knew about a lot of the stuff that was going down under Vichy but didn't do enough to stop or slow it - but not that he was an evil man or an out-and-out Nazi sympathiser. I have a lot of notes about Petain kicking around in my pile of unfinished writing projects, to which I may return one of these days, but I hope that the above is helpful for the time being.Paulturtle (talk) 23:26, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The French were never told about the death camps. They were told Jews were being used as slave labour for the war effort. Somebody had to lead France during the occupation, and Petain felt it was better to have some self-government rather than direct rule from Berlin.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.94.251 (talk) 11:16, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Petain's reputation 

message: I propose to remove the following four sections, and use them to create the kernel of a list article, to be entitled, List of Vichy government ministers (or similar):
* #1st ministry, 16 June – 12 July 1940
* #2nd ministry (Laval), 12 July – 13 December 1940
* #3rd ministry (Flandin), 13 December 1940 – 9 February 1941
* #4th ministry (Darlan), 9 February 1941 – 18 April 1942
These sections are very awkwardly tacked on to the end of this article. I can see why they didn't place them anywhere else, as they would blow up the the middle of the article dealing with Vichy with a ton of WP:UNDUE detail. These four sections cry out to be spun off into a stand-alone list article. At over 76kb readable ( > 200kb total), the article is due for a WP:SIZESPLIT, and would allow a bit of wiggle room for expansion of sections more directly related to Petain, if desired. Your feedback would be appreciated. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:29, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: So, in response to some of the suggestions above in the #Survey, I've created a draft stub with one possible section header organization, and some top and bottom matter, and with empty sections where the meat of the article should be. I haven't translated anything yet, but I may try filling in one of the sections that needs it from one of the French articles. Please have a look, and either comment on the Talk page there, or just reorganize it however you think works better. (Adding .) See Draft:Government of Vichy France.  Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:25, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Mathglot nice work, that will form a good basis for the page. Mztourist (talk) 07:33, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. The article's listed in the See Also are especially useful, and many of their topics could be worked into the page. CMD (talk) 08:43, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

text: Still coming along. Mathglot (talk) 05:53, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spin off ministry sections to new List article 

message: * Supportas nom. Doesn't belong here, too long and WP:UNDUE; would fit better in a list article somewhere else Mathglot (talk) 01:45, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey 

message: Various ideas are proposed above, replacing the original proposal, which I believe is now moot, although I'll allow the survey to run its course. In the meanwhile, the common element, I believe, is to create a new (non-List) article, and move some of the material there, possibly Government of Vichy France. Your further thoughts and ideas are welcome. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 10:39, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: So, in response to some of the suggestions above in the #Survey, I've created a draft stub with one possible section header organization, and some top and bottom matter, and with empty sections where the meat of the article should be. I haven't translated anything yet, but I may try filling in one of the sections that needs it from one of the French articles. Please have a look, and either comment on the Talk page there, or just reorganize it however you think works better. (Adding .) See Draft:Government of Vichy France.  Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:25, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Mathglot nice work, that will form a good basis for the page. Mztourist (talk) 07:33, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. The article's listed in the See Also are especially useful, and many of their topics could be worked into the page. CMD (talk) 08:43, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion 

message: Thanks to all who participated here, and for your useful suggestions, which helped lead to and define the new Draft. It's been some time, and I wanted to give you all ()) an update on where we are with this.  I've prepared a message at Draft talk:Government of Vichy France for you, and I hope you'll have a look, and comment. Thanks again for your feedback and great suggestions; I think you'll find some of them at the Draft itself. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 01:27, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Still coming along. Mathglot (talk) 05:53, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update on the Draft 

message: link at citation 54 is dead, Video on YouTube is taken down for a copy strike.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.245.40.24 (talk) 21:35, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation 54 is a dead link 

message: We should change the lead image to this. It feels like more of a formal photograph, it’s clearer, it has better color balance, and it’s less messy around the edges. Thoughts? The Image Editor (talk) 18:34, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  New infobox image 

message: [copied from a User talk page]
Someone added "and statesman" to this lede paragraph:
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (/peɪˈtæ̃/, French: [filip petɛ̃]); 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951) was a French military officer and statesman who commanded the French Army in World War I and became the head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France, from 1940 to 1944, during World War II.
Philippe Pétain was more than a military officer, but — unless "statesman" is generic and non-judgemental in Wikipedia (is Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini or Idi Amin a "statesman"?) — is there a better-focussed and less-loaded term for his rôle as Chef de l'État Français ? Or is any term needed when the lede sentence ends, "and became the head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France" ?
 —— Shakescene (talk) 02:33, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Worthwhile question... For the time being, I've reverted it, because whatever the right word is, 'statesman' is certainly not it. Mathglot (talk) 03:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statesman?