Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944

This book is an account of the government, and the governed, of collaborationist France. Basing his work on captured German archives and contemporary materials, the author maps out the complex nature of the ill-famed Vichy government, showing that it in fact enjoyed mass participation. The majority of the Frenchmen in 1940 feared social disorder as the worst imaginable evil and rallied to support the State, thereby bringing about the betrayal of the Nation as a whole.