Épuration légale

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Épuration légale (French "legal purge") is the name for the wave of official trials that occurred following the Liberation of France and the fall of the Vichy Regime.

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[edit] Context

Further information: Pursuit of Nazi collaborators#France

Following the liberation of France, the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) led by Charles de Gaulle was faced with the task of rebuilding the country and removing traitors, criminals and collaborators from office. The official purge in metropolitan France began in early 1945, although trials had been carried out since 1944. Its implementation was made difficult by the lack of magistrates; apart from one exception, all of the Third Republic's magistrates had taken an oath to Pétain's regime.[1] Three important types of courts were set up: the High Court of Justice (Haute Cour de justice), the Cours de justice, modeled on the Cour d'assises (Assize Court), and the "Civic Chambers" (Chambres civiques). Another form of jurisdiction was composed of the court martials who were charged of French citizens charged of pro-German military acts and Germans accused of war crimes (who judged Pierre Pucheu, Minister of the Interior of Vichy, and Otto Abetz, ambassador of Nazi Germany to Paris [1]). The High Court judged 108 persons (including 106 Ministers). The other courts opened investigations on more than 300,000 people, classifying without any indictment 180,000 of those investigations, and finally less than 800 executions were enacted [1]. Three successive amnesties were enacted, in 1947, 1951 and 1953 [1].

[edit] Judicial purge

The Comité Français de Libération Nationale (CFLN), which became the GPRF on June 4, 1944, issued an ordinance in Algiers on 18 August 1943, setting the basis for the judicial purge and establishing a Purge Commission (Commission d'Epuration). Following the landings in North Africa in November 1942, important civil servants loyal to Vichy, including Pierre Pucheu, former Minister of the Interior, were detained. Pucheu was indicted by a court martial at the end of August 1943, and his trial started on 4 March 1944. Charged with treason, he was executed on 20 March 1944.[2][3]

The concentration camps which had been used by Vichy to intern Jews, Spanish Republicans, Resistants, foreigners, etc., were now used to detain presumed collaborationists. In Paris, the Velodrome d'Hiver, the Drancy internment camp (managed by the Resistance until the arrival of the gendarmerie on 15 September 1944) and the Fresnes prison (Tino Rossi, Pierre Benoit, Arletty, Louis Renault, etc.) were used. The 4 October 1944 ordinance authorised prefects to proceed to the internment of people deemed dangerous, until the end of the hostilities. Internment also represented for Collaborationists a means of defence against popular vengeance.

On 31 October 1944, the Minister of Interior Adrien Tixier created commissions charged with controlling the internment camps and home confinements. The Red Cross often visited the camps with the assent of the new authorities. Adrien Tixier then stated in a memo of 30 August 1945 that although the war was not yet officially ended, further internments were prohibited except for serious cases (spying or important black marketeering). The 10 May 1946 Act fixed the legal date of the end of the war, and at the end of May 1946, all internment camps were cleared.

[edit] Legal purge

While the laws of 1939 did include provisions against treason, the particular nature of events related to the Occupation of France made a number of offences unclear before the law, such as signing in the SS or the Milice. Hence, exceptional legal procurements were made: the principles set unanimously by the Conseil National de la Résistance (National Council of Resistance, CNR) on the 15 March 1944 called for the political elimination of any person guilty of collaboration with the Nazis between the 16 June 1940 and the Liberation. Such offences included, notably:

  • taking part in collaborationist organisations or parties
  • taking part in propaganda
  • delation
  • any form of zeal in favour of the Germans
  • taking part in the black market

On the other hand, preventing a civil war meant that competent civil servants should not be taken out of office, and that moderate sentences should be given whenever possible. More importantly, this prevented local Resistance movements from doing "justice" themselves, effectively setting an end to the "combative" period of the Liberation and restoring the legal institutions of France. These new institutions were set on three principles:

  • the illegality of the Vichy regime
  • France still being at war with Nazi Germany: the armistice legally called for a cease fire and an end to military operations, but did not end the state of war. Hence, it remained the duty of any French to resist occupation.
  • retroactivity of the new texts.

On 26 August 1944, the government published an order defining the offence of indignité nationale ("national unworthiness"), and the corresponding punishment of dégradation nationale ("national stripping of rank"). Indignité nationale was characterised as "harming unity of France and neglecting one's national duty," and the sentence aimed in particular in prohibiting guilty individuals of exercising political functions.

On 18 November, the Haute Cour de Justice ("High Court of Justice") was created, with the aim of judging members of the Vichy government charged of offences of Indignité nationale (Marshal Pétain, etc.). Other suspects were judged by the cours de justice ("Court of Justice"). A High Court of Justice already existed under the Third Republic: the Senate was then to organise a court to judge state leaders guilty of high treason. But this form of justice had been suppressed by Marshal Pétain's Fifth Constitutional Act of 30 July, 1940, establishing the Vichy regime.

The new High Court was not composed anymore of senators, but presided by the first President of the Court of Cassation, assisted by the President of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation and by the first President of the Appeal Court of Paris. It was also composed of 24 juries, randomly chosen on two lists of a dozen each. The first list included 40 senators or deputies in function on 1st September 1939, who had not voted the full powers to Pétain on 10 July, 1940 (the Vichy 80). The second list was composed of 50 persons chosen by the Consultative Assembly in Resistance movements.

The composition of the High Court was changed again by the 27 December, 1945 Act. Thereafter, it was composed of 27 members, three magistrates and 24 juries randomly chosen on a list of 96 deputies of the Constituent Assembly, elected on 21 October, 1945. Each political party was represented on this list proportionally to its presence in the Assembly.

The High Court was further modified by the 15 September, 1947 Act, and then again by the 19 April, 1948 Act.

[edit] Trials

Jean-Pierre Esteva, Resident General of France in Tunisia, was the first official to be tried.[4] He was sentenced to detention for life on 15 March 1945, avoiding capital punishment because the court recognised that he had assisted patriots in May 1943, just before quitting Tunisia. Ill, Esteva was pardoned on 11 August 1950 and died a few months later.

Pétain's trial began on 23 July 1945. His lawyer, Isorni, pointed out that the public prosecutor, Mornet, had also been in charge of the Riom Trial organized by Pétain himself.[1] The marshal was sentenced to death on 15 August, but his sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment.

On the other hand, Pierre Laval, Prime Minister from July to December 1940 and from April 1942 to August 1942, had fled to Francoist Spain. Franco, however, sent him back to Innsbruck in Austria, which was part of the U.S. Occupation Zone. Laval was thereafter handed over to the French authorities, and his trial started on October 1945. He was sentenced to death on 9 October 1945 and executed a week later.

By 1 July 1949, the High Court had given out 108 sentences (106 of them concerned former ministers [1]):

Between 1954 and 1960, the High Court judged prisoners who had been sentenced in absentia or had been taken prisoner. More than a decade having passed, the court showed more leniency. For example, the General resident of Morocco, Charles Noguès, had been sentenced in absentia to 20 years of forced labour on 28 November 1947, but his indignité nationale was immediately suspended on 26 October 1956.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Epuration légale : 400 000 dossiers, moins de 800 morts, by Jean-Paul Cointet in Historia (French)
  2. ^ Pierre Buttin, Le procès Pucheu, Paris, Amiot-Dumont, 1948
  3. ^ Fred Kupferman, Le procès de Vichy : Pucheu, Pétain, Laval, Bruxelles, Editions Complexe, 1980
  4. ^ The Face of Dishonor. Time magazine (March 26, 1945). Retrieved on 2008-05-11.

[edit] See also

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