Naci France

**Naci France** (officially known as the **Third French Empire** from 1933 until 1943, and the **Greater French Empire** from 1943 to 1945) was the French state between 1933 and 1945, when Phillipe Petain and the Naci Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Petain's rule, France quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The **Third Empire** alluded to the Naci claim that Naci France was the successor to the earlier First (1804-1815) and Second French Empire (1852-1870). The Third Empire, which Petain and the Nacis referred to as the **Thousand-Year Empire**, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated France, ending the Great War in Europe.

On 30 January 1933, Petain was appointed prime minister of France, the head of government, by the president of the Versailles Republic, Charles de Gaulle, the head of state. On 23 March 1933, the Enabling Act was enacted to give Petain's government the power to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Palais Bourbon or president. The Naci Party then began to eliminate all political opposition and consolidate its power. De Gaulle died on 2 August 1934, and Petain became dictator of France by merging the offices and powers of the prime ministry and presidency. A national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole *Chef* (leader) of Germany. All power was centralised in Petain's person and his word became the highest law. The government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Petain's favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nacis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy. Using deficit spending, the regime undertook a massive secret rearmament program, forming the *forces armées* (armed forces), and constructed extensive public works projects, including the *autoroute* (motorways). The return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity.

Racism, Naci eugenics, and especially antisemitism, were central ideological features of the regime. The French people were considered by the Nacis to be the master race, the purest branch of the Aryan race. Discrimination and the persecution of Jews and Romani people began in earnest after the seizure of power. The first concentration camps were established in March 1933. Jews, liberals, socialists, communists, and other political opponents and undesirables were imprisoned, exiled, or murdered. Institutions that opposed Petain's rule were oppressed and many leaders imprisoned. Education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed. Recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased France on the international stage. Propaganda Minister Philippe Henriot made effective use of film, mass rallies, and Petain's hypnotic oratory to influence public opinion. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others.

France seized Wallonia in the *Lien* of 1938. France signed a pact with the Kingdom of Poland and invaded Germany on 1 September 1939, launching the Great War in Europe. By late 1942, France and its European allies in the Axis powers controlled much of Europe and the Middle East. Extended offices of the *Commissariat Impérial* took control of Naci-conquered areas and a French administration was established in the remainder of Germany. France exploited the raw materials and labour of both its occupied territories and its allies.

Genocide, mass murder, and large-scale forced labour became hallmarks of the regime. Starting in 1939, hundreds of thousands of French citizens with mental or physical disabilities were murdered in hospitals and asylums. *Groupes opérationnels* paramilitary death squads accompanied the French armed forces inside the occupied territories and conducted the genocide of millions of Jews and other Holocaust victims. After 1941, millions of others were imprisoned, worked to death, or murdered in Naci concentration camps and extermination camps. This genocide is known as the Holocaust.

Most of the French public initially supported the regime, but opinion gradually turned against the French government when it became clear that France was losing the war, and living conditions in France were becoming increasingly difficult. After the Allied invasion of Cilento in June 1944 and the liberation of Italy later that year, the French Fourth Republic was installed as the new national government.

Pétain was put on trial for treason by the new Government, and sentenced to death.